Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Teach Me Tuesday: Playdoh Letters

The few learning activities that I've shared have been so well received that I decided to make sharing them a regular feature. I'll try my best to stick to this schedule: Tuesdays will be for literacy activities and Thursday will be for math skills.

I know all of you are doing activities at home with your children too and I would love for this to become an opportunity for us all to share learning experiences, regardless of the age of the child. Starting next week I'm going to put up Mr. Linky so we can all share. I thought if I let you know today then maybe by next week some of you will be ready to go☺

I think this will be a lot of fun, I hope to learn some new tricks and tips, and I'd love for you to all participate! My friend Katie over at A Listmaker's Life is also posting and is even helping me out with a cool graphic, isn't she the nicest! She's got an a letter activity posted today too, so visit her for another great learning idea.

Prewriting Practice: Playdoh Letters

Learning Objective: Child will form letters out of playdoh, engaging fine motor skills, practice beginning letter printing, and early letter awareness.

Materials: Playdoh, cardstock with large letters printed on them (laminate for durability)

Procedure:
Sing the alphabet with child, holding up the corresponding letter card as each letter is being sung or read an alphabet book to get the child engaged in the concept of the alphabet.

Explain that you are going to be working on building letters together.

Show child how to make ropes out of playdoh, I still have to assist my daughter with this step.

Build each letter out of play doh ropes, saying each letter and words that begin with that letter as you work. Assist or discuss with your child as needed.

Child can complete as many letter cards as their age and attention span allows for. In kindergarten students could easily do all the letters, in toddler land maybe three or four get done at a time. As you can see from the picture, she's also into smushing the play doh lines down.
Extension Activities: Try to vary the ways in which your child practices learning letters.

For writing practice have your child: write them with their finger in a salt tray, use a dry erase board, small chalkboard, magna doodle, or lite bright. Alternate making the letters out of play doh with making them with bingo daubers. To use daubers, write the letter on a sheet of paper and have your child use the daubers to make circles along the lines. You could also form the letters out of dough, bake, and then literally eat the alphabet. These variations will make the activity fresh and new and help keep their interest in practicing a skill that can be quite challenging.

13 comments:

  1. That is a GREAT idea to help kids learn letters! I am going to try this with my 3 year old! We just got done with the whole potty-training era...maybe I will write a post about it! I am sorry...it is so frustrating, huh? :(

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  2. Oh, Katie! You just MADE my morning!

    I LOVED this post and love even more your announcement!

    This post is perfect for us, as we are going through our letters right now!

    I will definitely be here participating with you and can't wait to see what all you share with us!

    THANK YOU!!!!

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  3. This is very similar to and activity I did regularly in a program I taught in Kindergarten... Handwriting Without Tears. Great idea!
    ~ Jodi Snyder

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  4. YEAH! I love your post! You take such great picture so ER in action. She does good work. You also have a lot of great info on extension activities. I see you got a fun comment from another of my fave K teachers (and my sweet neighbor)!

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  5. She is adorable!!! I had a woman who homeschooled 5 children tell me to also use pudding for them to write letters with their fingers as they get older, do counting with rice or cheerios, she also did spelling tests on the shower walls with dry erase markers! I love those quick thinking-use what you have-ideas! :)

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  6. Thanks so much for sharing - and I am very much looking forward to all the other ideas!
    And I can only recommend the "letter-making with dough"! We just did that on Sunday - used a simple pretzel-yeast-dough - and it worked great! And my daughter was very proud to eat her "K" as an afternoon snack. :-)

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  7. Katie - thank you for coming to my blog with my ABC book. You had asked what program I used, it is Storybook Creator 2 made by Creative Memories. I bought the program a few years ago from Katie at A Listmaker's Life. I love it! Thanks for commenting on my blog, it makes my day to see someone has checked it out. :)

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  8. This is wonderful! I love the fact that there is a good model of the letter for them to follow. I am a former elementary teacher myself and so I will look forward to your learning posts and try to jump in with Mr. Linky sometime!

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  9. This is a good idea. My little one loves play doh, and loves the alphabet so it's a grand idea to combine them. We have a wooden alphabet toy from pottery barn kids that's awesome. We're working on the song, which is going well except from L-P. :) And I have no idea why Caillou is still bald. Looked it up on wikipedia and I guess he was younger than 4 in the books and his name means bald or something. Hm. She loves it though! And your ER has the sweetest rosy cheeks!

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  10. This is a great idea. I have two "preschoolers" and I am always looking for things to keep them occupied.
    Toni

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  11. Oh this is a great idea. Mister Man totally has his letters (and words) down, but Little Miss needs some help. And I make breadsticks out of leftover pizza dough sometimes -- I know what I'm making next time!

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  12. Hello, I just discovered your blog via One Pretty Thing. You have great projects and your little girl is a sweetie! I look forward to following your blog!

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  13. I love this idea, and my son will too! Thanks!!

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