Playing with Letters
Learning Letter-Sounds and Creating Words (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 1: Beginning LiteracyAges:
4-6
Grade Range:
PreK K 1stFood Groups:
Primary: Letter-Sounds & Phonics, Concepts of Print Secondary: Phonemic Awareness, Classroom Tips
Transcript
This is a great way to turn your water table into a literacy activity. Here the children are just fishing for their capital letters, and then they just need to match them on the alphabet with their lower case buddy. The reason why we've stuck in the word "and" is when they're singing the alphabet song they would sing "Y and Z". Like everywhere else in the classroom the children have taken ownership and labelled different places with signs. So, this is a sign that says the Water Table. This is a wonderful story about a little boy named Max who finds a bin of old alphabet blocks under his bed and he creates a wonderful castle, and as the events in the story change, he changes the words that he creates with the alphabet blocks. So, borrowing the idea from this story, the children here just create their own castle, weaving in some words that they know how to spell, and I've given them a prompt here so that when they're retelling the story they can start with this starter "one day there was a", and that helps them retell the story. Another mentor text that we've used here is Max's Words and also The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni, where the collection of letters can create words. The children can use these book jackets, that the librarian might take off of the new books that they buy, to create their name by cutting out just the letters that they need.
Related References
Activity Objective
The goal of Playing with Letters: Learning Letter-Sounds and Creating Words (Virtual Tour) is to provide numerous opportunities for students play with the individual sounds in spoken words.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Model the behaviors and expectations at each center. - Promote reading and writing at various centers, including the water table.
Other Recipes by this Teacher
Building Word Families: Making and Breaking Words in the ABC Center (Virtual Tour)
PreK - 1st
Naming Objects from the Sound Bin: Building Awareness of Initial Phonemes (Virtual Tour)
PreK - 1st
Letter of the Week: Engaging Activities to Practice Letter Names and Sounds (Virtual Tour)
PreK - 1st
Forming Letters: Verbal Prompts to Facilitate Learning (Virtual Tour)
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Build Your Own Poem!: Making Rhymes Based on Spelling Patterns (Virtual Tour)
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