When kids are learning the alphabet, they need to learn the sounds that each letter makes. The next installment in my 101 Ways to Teach the Alphabet Series is sorting miniature objects by their initial sound. This is a great exercise in reinforcing letter sounds and helping kids listen carefully to the sounds of words.
For this activity, I suggest you start by selecting just 2 or 3 letters for your child to focus on at one time.
When I did this activity with my daughter, she was working on hearing the difference between /b/ and the /p/, so those are the letters I chose.
But you can just as easily do this activity with any other letter of the alphabet for which you can find objects starting with that sound. (So you probably wouldn’t use this activity to work on the ‘x,’ for example, because you won’t find many objects starting with the an ‘x.’ But ‘s’ and ‘t’ and ‘m,’ among many others, are all good choices.)
I set up this activity by placing a ‘b’ and a ‘p’ on either side of a tray. In between, I filled a bowl with miniature objects beginning with the /b/ and /p/ sounds, including a bucket, a block, a pear, and a pig.
All of the miniature objects I used came from the Language Object Starter Set sold by Montessori Services.
My daughter selected one object at a time from the bowl. She named the object, then determined whether its initial sound was a /b/ or a /p/.
She then placed each object under the correct letter.
She continued placing all the objects until the bowl was empty.
This is a simple and effective way to help young children learn their letter sounds. My kids love doing hands-on activities using our Language Object Starter Set, and there are endless ways to use miniature objects to help kids learn language.
More ways to teach to the alphabet
More alphabet posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Letter hunt sensory bin
- Erasing letters with a Q-tip
- I spy letter hunt
- Spaghetti letters
- Letter puzzles
- Montessori sandpaper letters
- Smash the puffy letters
- Kinetic sand letters
- Letter hopscotch
- Letter hop
- Yarn wrapped letters
- Letter tic-tac-toe
- Rainbow letters
You can find more ways to teach the alphabet on my Literacy Activities for Kids page and my Letter Learning Pinterest board.
I really love this activity! The Language Object Starter Set looks great, but unfortunately it is too expensive for me to purchase!
The Large Object Starter Set is awesome and we’ve used it for a variety of activities. However, even without the set you may be able to gather items you already have in the home or classroom to use. For example, I bet you could find objects in your kitchen (spoon, fork, bowl), the kids’ toy box (cars, dolls, houses), and other places around your home (pencil, paper, tape, blanket, pillow) that you could use to do this activity. It takes a bit more work but with a bit of creativity it might be possible.
I really like this idea. I recently did this for the first time with items from around the house but definitely will think about the starter set to make it easier.
I really enjoy your ideas and creativity. Thanks so much all you put into your blog and sharing with us!