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Can I make a confession? I really do not like playing tic-tac-toe. The game requires very little in the way of skill, so virtually anytime I play it ends in a tie. And it just isn’t challenging enough to hold my interest.
However, my kids went through a phase where they loved playing tic-tac-toe. Which, of course, meant that I was called upon many times to play tic-tac-toe over and over and over.
But as much as I find the game to be boring, I did find one very good use for it – teaching letters! In this installment of my 101 Ways to Teach the Alphabet Series, I’m sharing how I helped my kids learn their letters by playing Letter Tic-Tac-Toe.
Letter Tic-Tac-Toe is super simple to play. Grab a white board and a marker or simply a sheet of paper and a pencil. Draw a grid with two horizontal and two vertical lines. Then two people take turns filling in the nine boxes in an attempt to get three in a row.
Instead of playing with the usual X’s and O’s, I asked my daughter on this particular day to play with lowercase c’s.
And I played with lowercase a’s.
Even though most of our games ended in a tie, I felt like we were both winners because my daughter got to practice her letters while having fun at the same time. Whoo hoo!
More ways to teach to the alphabet
More alphabet posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Letter hunt sensory bin
- Erasing letters with a Q-tip
- Spaghetti letters
- Letter puzzles
- Montessori sandpaper letters
- Smash the puffy letters
- Mini letter hunt with a magnifying glass
- Kinetic sand letters
- Letter hopscotch
- Crystallized letters
- Letter hop
- Yarn wrapped letters
- Rainbow letters
You can find more ways to teach the alphabet on my Literacy Activities for Kids page and my Letter Learning Pinterest board.
