We used a couple different methods to teach our boys their letters. I'm sure I never learnt them this way in a classroom, and I don't think it's how they teach them now in school either. So whether your homeschooling or your child needs a little extra help check them out below. It worked for our boys. It was fun and involved them physically doing things at the same time. If you have little boys, you know they have energy and sitting down to study isn't going to be the best plan of attack. If you want happy kids and don't want to be frustrated yourself give these a try. It also keeps their attention long enough for them to learn.
Here's the 3 ways we taught our boys the ABC's.
1. A fun way to learn letter recognition is to use big flash cards and a Nerf gun. Yup a Nerf gun, the boys love this. As a bonus they get to practice their aim. We have alphabet flash cards hung up on our wall. I'm sure you could also use a poster with the alphabet on it. The letters becomes your target. The parent or older sibling who has mastered letter recognition calls out a letter, the child has a Nerf gun and has to say the letter and then aim and shoot the letter that was called. My boys had so much fun learning their letters this way and it's easy for the parent to keep track of which they recognize and which they need to work on or if there is any confusion between letters that look alike. It makes it easy for the parent to describe the differences and correct the child. The parent can adjust until all of the letters are mastered. You can keep adjusting as you go along. Instead of calling the letter you may make the sound. The point is that the boys have fun doing something that's productive and they're learning.
2. Here is another physical letter learning activity we did. Using smaller flash cards we laid three - five letters on the ground in a row about a foot apart. The child is to stand in front of the row. The parent calls out one of the letters from the row. The child has to jump over the correct letter. If they get it right a new letter replaces the one they jumped over, and the child gets to add the letter to their completed pile. If they get it wrong they do not get the card and have to try again. You do this until all the letters in the alphabet are used up. This can be repeated until they learn their letters, again you can do this with the sounds of the letter as well. Be sure to shuffle your cards, you want your child to be able to recognize each letter and sound on their own. It works because the boys are focused on making a big awesome jump but in order to jump they have to know their letters. The jumping is the motivation and reward as well as adding to their completed pile.
3. This is one way we helped our boys learn how to write their letters. This way isn't as physical besides the actual writing part. We did use those sheets you can find everywhere with the dotted lines and then the child traces the letters and writes them over and over again. They work, but I found our boys weren't very excited about practicing their letters and they weren't motivated to do it. Our boys wanted to write the words they wanted to write. What I would do is use a bright yellow highlighter and write out neatly what they wanted to say. The yellow highlighter is hard enough to see that when you use something else, like a pencil, to write on top you see that better, but it's enough for the child to see when they are tracing. We would use this trick a lot when we were making cards for grandparents or other loved ones. When they were able to write what they wanted to write they were much more motivated to sit there, focus and do it.
If you found this helpful or inspiring, please pin it or share it and watch out for more unique ideas on teaching boys.
*I'm sure this would work for girls as well, but being a parent of only boys that's what I can speak too. Do you have any creative letter learning tricks?
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