Preschoolers: Hands-on Literacy Activities

Children learn best by doing.  Preschool children learn best by playing.  With this in mind, I’ve developed a list of a few literacy activities that you can do with your child that incorporates active play/learning.

• Pipe Cleaner Letters – Work with your child to shape letters out of pipe cleaners.  Help your child make the letters of his name.  Work on additional words your child may know as well.  This activity is great for fine motor skills.
• Magnet Letter Match – Provide a cookie sheet and a box of magnetic letters.  Cut various pictures out of magazines and glue them to individual index cards.  Put magnets on the back of the cards.  Ask your child what the picture is.  Have your child match the letter to the initial sound of the picture.  For example if you have a picture of a cat, your child should match the letter “C” to the picture.

• Sticker Stories – Provide your child with stickers.  Have your child make a scene with the stickers.  Then ask them to tell you a story about the scene.  Write the story for them.

• Letter-Balloo – Put large pieces of cardstock with one letter on each one on the floor, have your child, swim, run, skip , crawl, jump, slither, or spin to the letters you call out.

• Rhyme-Balloo – Put pictures on pieces of cardstock.  Place them on the floor.  Call out a word that rhymes with the picture and have your child swim, run, skip, crawl, jump, slither, or spin to the picture that rhymes with the word.

Dawn Little (aka Links to Literacy) also blogs at www.teachingwithpicturebooks.wordpress.com where she provides educators with picture book lessons based on comprehension strategies and the Six Traits of Writing.  In addition, she blogs at www.literacytoolbox.wordpress.com where she provides educators and parents with tips and tools to enhance the literacy lives of children.  She is the founder and owner of Links to Literacy, a company dedicated to providing interactive literacy experiences for children and families.  Find out more at www.linkstoliteracy.com

One Comment

• Isaias Bucher says:

  July 25, 2011 at 10:32 am

  First Jaime I would like you to reflect on what made you learn and how you learned it and why. Forgive any implied words that feel patronized. Of course the Library is the place to be, tho’ consider a group of like minded people. Bird watching, book club is in here, running or cycling.