Digging for Letters

Purpose: This activity is an active learning game that will help children to think about the letters. Some children will be matching shapes, whereas other children are already mastering the names of the letters. Either way, the children are relating to the letters and are actively engaged with them. Remember that children first recognize the letters as shapes rather than as symbols of sound; it takes time for them to be developmentally ready to think symbolically.  And the ability to discriminate between and recognize the letters is critical to their future reading success.

 

Materials/Advance Preparation:

• Small letters (I use magnetic letters)
• Small pebbles, packing "popcorn," or something you can hide the letters in
• Tubs or large bowls (or a sand table)
• Large letters (I use the foam ones) that are the same as the small letters
• Prior to the activity, fill each tub or the sand table with enough pebbles to easily cover the small letters.   Hide the letters.

Directions:

1. Place the foam letters on the floor where children can easily get to them.  You probably do not want to use all the letters of the alphabet each time, especially with the younger children, but remember that the small letters need to match whatever large letters you use.
2. Place two or three children at each tub or at the sand table and explain that  they should dig through the pebbles until they find one letter.
3. When they have a letter, they should go to the foam letters and place their letter on the matching large foam letter, then return to the tub and find the next letter until they have found all the small letters and matched them to the large letters.

Note:  You need to watch closely for those children who fail to match the letters correctly.  Depending on the ages and developmental levels of the children, you may want to focus on a particular set of letters (for example, with the youngest children, start with a set of letters that look very different from each other [e.g., s, m, t, v]; as they are able to better distinguish the different shapes, use a set of letters that have more similarities, etc.).

Eric Gidseg

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