the alphabet

I mentioned before that Theo has suddenly had a sort of lightbulb moment and the alphabet has started making sense to him, or at least letters have. He doesn't know the letters in order, but he knows pretty much all of them now without too much confusion! I'm not claiming him to be a genius, just probably learning things at the normal rate, but it still impresses me that he can recognise them all and tell me what they are and how they sound.

I can't remember when we started really trying to teach him to letters (to be honest before I had Theo I just assumed they learnt the alphabet and numbers at school...how wrong I was!) so I thought I would share a few of the things we have found fun and useful.

First off books. We've got a few nice books to do with the alphabet but these two are probably my favourite!

 

The first is Alphabet by Alain Gree which was a lovely birthday present from his god father. I just love the illustrations so much and some pages have little alliteration rhymes and others just lots of picutres. Theo's favourite at the moment is 'e' because it has an excellent picture of a train engine. What's even better about this book is that the paper cover doubles up as an Alphabet poster!

The second book probably doesn't need much introduction, as I'm sure everyone knows a little Dr. Seuss. But we love this alphabet book too! The book reads more like a story, with a page per letter some describing them as big and little letters, with tongue twisters and lots and lots of alliterations in true Suess style! There are weird and wonderful creatures along the way and I'd say this book is great for teaching the order of the alphabet.

Next we have a letter puzzle, and since Theo is puzzle mad we complete this at least twice a day! My mum bought it for Theo for Christmas from John Lewis I believe? We really love it! The letters are big and chunky and he has to figure which way up and round they go in the right holes, we then look at the pictures, or I'll ask him what letter the snake is etc, it's pretty fun!

We also have letters in the bath, which we play little games with...

We have a little wash mit monster with a mouth, so we made up a game where the monster likes to eat letters. So it asks Theo for a letter and if he picks the right one then the monster will eat it right up, but if its the wrong one he will spit it out and say yuk not that one...the other one! It's safe to say Theo likes this game quite a lot!

Finally of course there are alphabet apps. There are a few we've used but none come close to the genius that is Endless Alphabet.

First you can select the word from the gallery by scrolling through, with new words added daily. The word appears but then the letters are jumbled up by a stampede of monsters. You then drag each letter do its right place, and when doing so the letter with make the phonic sounds, when dropped into the correct place it will tell you what letter is. When the word is complete there is then a little animation that describes what the word means. For an app that is free we think it's amazing! I can see it helping Theo learn his letters, phonics, how to spell and the meanings of words.

Anyway those are our favourite alphabet related toys and books! Hope you enjoy them too!