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Literacy & ABCs
Move & LearnToddlers71 Comments
Get active while you work on ABC skills with your preschooler. Try this fun spin to find the letter, then swat it with a fly swatter!
I’ve been working a lot on letters with George lately. He’s getting them down pretty good.
I’m just reinforcing what he already knows and building his confidence that he does know what the letters are!
This activity was inspired by an iPad app for young kids called KneeBouncers. It has all different areas of learning, but we focused on learning letters.
You choose whatever letter to work on and there are several games to play for each letter. They’re all the same concept, just with different letters.
It’s great repetition for young kids.
The Flowery letter game on KneeBouncers is about picking the flower that has the letter — whatever it is that they’re working on. It’s one of our favorites!
Find the Letter & Swat It! Active Way for Learning Letters!
I set up this find the letter and swat it game around the same concept, just with lots of physical activity. I thought it was a fun way to bring his on-screen fun into the real world!
I drew a bunch of circles on a piece of butcher paper (affiliate link) that I taped to the table. I just traced around an old cottage cheese container with Sharpie markers.
I purposely used several different colors to add helpful hints in the game later on, but it created another aspect of the game I wasn’t expecting.
In each circle, I wrote a random letter. I didn’t have enough room for 26 circles, so I just chose the letters that I knew George was already familiar with.
I picked those letter so that he would feel confident.
Find more ways to learn letters for toddlers and preschoolers with these 50 activities to learn the ABCs.
Find the Letter and Swat It!
I love this game because it is so simple, but can be played in different ways, too. We kept it super simple.
Find the letter and swat it! That’s it!
George came to the table when I grabbed two fly swatters, wondering what we were going to do for our letter activity!
I called out a letter, George would then find the letter and swat it!
Sometimes if he was having a hard time finding it, I’d act like I beat him to it. I would say, “There it is!” and swat it myself.
He thought it was super silly.
Sometimes I’d have him swat a letter and tell me what it was and then I’d swat it myself too.
I’d also give him helpful hints with the color of the letter. For example, find the purple T.
Which turned it into another game.
If I told him it was a blue letter, he sometimes found another blue letter that wasn’t the one we were looking for.
So instead of telling him a letter to swat, I told him to find all the blue letters and swat them as he goes.
Then George had enough and wanted to clean up our activity (he likes peeling off tape) and asked to play KneeBouncers again.
What are your favorite ways to bring screen time games into real life? Share your best crossover activities and games in the comments!
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Sharon says
I am going to use this as a centers activity. I think it will be a great differentiated activity. My lowest group that still cannot recognize letters can use it to learn their letters. My mid groups can use it to learn short letter sounds, and my higher group can use it to learn long sounds and make words. Thanks for the awesome idea.
JDaniel4's Mom says
I can totally see my guy swatting letters and maybe numbers.
Christian Alejandro says
The ABCs right now.
Connie Gruning says
We are learning sight words right now.
Abby Kraynick says
Counting & Shapes
Kate says
My daughter is learning to write.
Kristie D. says
Right now the kids are learning the alphabet and basic numbers. So far, so good. kristiedonelson(at)gmail(dot)com Thank you!
Nicole Sender says
Beginning reading!
latanya says
my son is learning sight words
Candie L says
I was wanting this for a family friend, so my oldest son is learning about functions in Algebra I and the youngest is learning about range, mean, and median. OK the wrong answer but thought you might find it funny.
kolpin says
my niece is learning her abcs
rafflecopter: daniel
Emi says
We are just learning the alphabet and getting things mixed up between different languages. Plus we are doing addition. Age 3.
Tabathia B says
We are practicing counting and repeating abc’s
T.h.Ransom says
My son is learning his ABCs and colors
Kerrie Mayans says
She is learning to count up to 10 right now.
Kevin E says
My 6 year old twins are learning how to read and basic math.
Samantha Daleo says
She is learning about French and France.
Linda Trinklein says
We are working on writting letters :D thanks
Claire says
the alphabet
Claire says
Colors and some letters
Cori Westphal says
My kids are working on a bit of geography, and some basic math facts!
coriwestphal at msn dot com
Teish says
Basic letter sounds and how to blend them. :-)
Lynn says
He is learning to put letters together to form basic words.
Zoe says
Awesome!
Melissa Daudelin says
Letters!
Whitney @ It's Gravy, Baby! says
My 2.5 year old is learning about letters and colors.
Kellie Christensen says
Little phrases. Its adorable!
Naomie says
Write his name
Jessica Wyatt says
My son is 16 months old, so he’s mostly learning words
Kathleen says
My son is learning patterns now.
deanna says
learning Spanish right now
xo
Pam H. says
How to write her name.
Kayla Rice says
ABC’s and 123’s
Leah Shumack says
Spelling is the main thing we are working on now!
JoBeth says
abcs and numbers
Shemp DeYoung (@shempgames) says
We spent the afternoon stocking up on Art supplies for my daughter.
roxy meto says
learn walking
Nancy says
Our children are young adults, so they are learning to do their best job in the real world of work!
jenn giannetto says
we are currently working on learning to write his name
heather says
no kids i want to win for friends kids
Kirby says
Colors and some letters
vickie says
He is learning to count on his fingers to five
femto says
so nice thank you
letters and numbers
Andi S says
Singing & signing the alphabet, counting past 3 (3 is very exciting, one, two, THREE!!!) got to work on that :)
kelly mcgrew says
numbers!
Sarah says
This is a great game – I used a similar version in my kindergarten classroom. I cut a square hole in the middle of the fly swatter and the kids hat to swat the alphabet finding letters around the classroom. My kinders were 4 and 5, so they were also looking for letters inside words – they could use books, centers, or any label they could find! It was always a big hit (haha – literally!) Very impressive your 2.5 year old knows most of his letters – well done Mama!
kristina says
I love active learning games like this one! My daughter loves whacking things… so I’m sure she would love this!
Kimberly Hart says
This is such a fantastic idea and fun too! I like the idea of adding the shapes to this too. Great post!
Emily Gary says
I have really enjoyed this blog since finding it last week.
Amanda meyer says
I made this into a color and shape game with J, he has enjoyed watching us swap flies this summer so this was a perfect game to make with him. I was showing him the pictures of the game on the ipad and he shouts “GEORGE, play toys.”
Jamie Reimer says
hahaha! We definitely need to get them together again! Shapes and colors would work awesome for this Amanda! We’ll have to try that too.
Emma says
This looks so fun! Kids get to be noisy and swat at things (little do they know they’re learning too!)
Jamie Reimer says
I know :D Oh how sneaky we are…