Engaging ABC Learning Activities for Toddlers
Introduction
Alphabet awareness is a foundational skill of early literacy, and children learn letters and letter sounds through varied and repeated exposure and practice. One of the best ways to start developing alphabet awareness is by focusing on letters in everyday life and focusing on the most important letters in a child’s life - the letters in his or her name. Name activities are a great way to start introducing young children to the letters and sounds of the alphabet. To help them learn additional letters, be sure to provide varied and repeated exposure and letter activities. Here are some ABC learning activities for toddlers.
Foundational Skills and Multi-Sensory Learning
There are a variety of opinions on exactly what kids should know before entering kindergarten. Typically, some of these literacy foundational skills are found on the kindergarten readiness lists. These include demonstrating book awareness (understanding that books are read front to back, top to bottom, left to right). There are many different opinions about how to introduce letters to kids and whether to introduce them in a particular order. Kids need to use auditory skills to develop phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. They need to use visual skills to learn phonics. So multi-sensory activities are necessary to learn to read. You can enhance learning by using more senses.
Playful Alphabet Activities
Here are some multi-sensory alphabet activities for your kids. These hands-on learning activities will help your kids focus on the shape of the letters to help them learn letter identification and alphabet recognition.
Playdough Letter Formation
Get out some different colors of playdough and a playdough mat. Show them how to form letters with coils of playdough.
Salt Tray Writing
Say the sound of a letter as you write it with your finger in a salt tray.
Read also: Developmental Milestones at Age 4
Alphabet Song with Movement
Sing an alphabet song that combines letters, sounds, and movement. Sure, you can sing the classic ABC song. But it’s even better if you remember to make it multi-sensory.
Tactile Letter Cards
This activity is like classic sandpaper letters, but are so much more exciting. Use printable letter cards or make your own from construction paper. To make it into a multi-sensory activity, glue items to the letter on the card to create a tactile letter card.
Letter March
Create a large letter on the floor with painter’s tape. Pretend to play a musical instrument as you march around the letter.
Toy Car Letter Tracing
Create a large letter on the floor with masking tape. Trace the letter by driving toy cars over the lines. This is a great way for them to learn the shape of the letter. Don’t forget to pretend that your car makes the corresponding sounds of the letters.
Animal Letter Walk
Walk or swim a toy animal over a letter.
Read also: Integrating SEL
Fine Motor Letter Pick-Up
Use tweezers, tongs, or clothespin clips to pick up pom-poms, mini-erasers, or rocks.
Chenille Stem Letters
Create letters with chenille stems.
Drive Around Letter Signs
Do you know some kiddos who loves cars? Place letter signs on the floor. Drive toy cars around the signs. Say the letter sound as you drive around it. You can make a fun letter matching activity with these signs. Kids can drive a circle around the uppercase letter sign and then find the corresponding lowercase letter sign and drive around it.
Genius Alphabet Activities for Toddlers
Need some additional ideas for teaching the alphabet? Try these 10 genius alphabet activities for toddlers to teach those first letters.
Flour Letter Tracing
Empty flour into a large oven tray or onto a flat surface. This activity can get a little floury!
Read also: Movement and Learning
Duck Letter Matching
Match the letter on the duck to the letter on the foam board.
Paintbrush Lettering
Give them a pot of watered down paints in different colours and a thick paintbrush.
Blossom Name Tree Craft
Here your child picks a lettered blossom. Either let them line them up on a magnetic white board, or play around with them on the fridge.
Letter Stomping
Who said learning had to be done at a desk? Instead get them to ‘stomp’ on the right letter. Lay it out and place a large letter in front of it.
Finger Letter Tracing
Let your toddler copy the lines of the letter by writing with their finger.
Active Alphabet Games
Older toddlers and preschoolers are soaking up all this information about letters and want to learn them! Active ways to learn are my favorite! We are sharing some of our favorite hands-on ways for kids to learn, many of these can be applied to other areas of learning as well. Challenge yourself and your kids to do the same fun activities with a different skill! Most importantly, they’re fun and they’re active, these alphabet games will get your child ready to learn in the most fun way possible.
ABC Floor Mat
If you have one of those ABC floor mats, use it to learn! Make a game out of it, or just call our letters for them to find and put it in alphabetical order.
Letter Puzzle
I often put the outside part of the puzzle pieces together and would ask George to find the letters to fill them in.
Letter Blocks
Just playing with blocks, whether it’s wooden blocks, Legos, or Mega Blocks, kids can use this technique to learn the letters of the alphabet.
Alphabet Scavenger Hunt
Create a little alphabet scavenger hunt by hiding letters around the house for them to find.
Alphabet Maze
Making mazes is quite easy with some painter’s tape on the floor. First start at the beginning and make turns back and forth to the finish.
String Scavenger Hunt Maze
Put the two together, the maze and a scavenger hunt. My kids love ‘string’ scavenger hunts. We did it with lower-case letters matching to upper-case letters when they got through the maze.
Sidewalk Chalk Matching
Sidewalk chalk is always a hit! Write pairs of letters, either the same (uppercase or lowercase) or one of each, and have them match them up by drawing a line between the two. Add to it by talking about what letters they’re connecting, or asking what letter they’re trying to find the match for.
Letter Swatting
What kid wouldn’t love swatting something? Now add a large piece of paper with some letters on it and call out letters for them to swat.
Ball Letter Sounds
Grab one of the many balls that you probably have rolling around the house or garage. Throw or roll the ball back and forth practicing letter sounds or beginning letters, or just calling out letters!
Letter Race
Shout for them to run and grab the letter ‘B’ and race back to give it to you or put it in a basket. Great for recognition and fun because my kids love anything that’s a race!
Additional Creative Alphabet Activities
Here are also some additional ABC learning activities for toddlers:
Ice Painting
Let the kids have fun painting the ice.
Letter Collages
Put glue ALL over the letter.
Mess-Free Dot Art
Your little ones will use the paint markers to place specific colored dots on the upper case letter and lower case letters!
Alphabet Flower Sticks
Cut off the middle of pieces of the egg carton. Then, flip it over and make slices at the bottom of each egg holder. The kids will place the alphabet flower sticks into the egg carton in alphabetical order!
Play-Doh Letter Mats
Print off the letters that you want to work on! Then, place them inside a dry-erase folder for your little ones to build on. Your little ones should roll and create the letters using Play-Doh.
Sponge Painting Letters
Have the kids dip the sponges into the paint and start to fill in each letter! The kids will try to fill in as much of the letter as they can.
Magnet Block Letters
Cut the letter bulletin border up in individual letters. The kids loved scooping out the letters!
Bubble Foam Sensory Bin
Blend on medium and dump into a sensory bin. Have the kids use scoops or just play with their hands in the bubbles!
Counting Cube Letter Cover
Have your child identify the letter. Then, have them tell you which one is upper case and which one is lower case.
Sensory Bag Letters
Write the letters of the alphabet you want to review on the bag with Sharpie. Then, dump 1 bottle of hair gel into the plastic bag. Have the kids scoot the letters to the right letter on the bag to match them up!
Watercolor Letter Reveal
On white cardstock, use a white crayon to write the letter D all over the paper. Your kiddo will use watercolors to paint all over the paper. Then, they will see the letters start to pop up!
Mega Blok Matching
Cut a label in half and write the upper and lower case letters on them. The kids will stack the correct upper and lower case blocks together!
Sprinkle Letter Sweeping
On cardstock paper, write a big bubble letter G. Dump a bunch of cookie sprinkles onto the tray. Ask your little one to use the paintbrush to “sweep” the sprinkles into the letter.
LEGO Letter Building
Your child will use the blocks to create the letter G. You can have them use little or DUPLO blocks for this activity.
Water Sensory Bin Letters
Fill the sensory bin up with water and place the letters in the water! Turn this into a reading game by having your older kids work on creating words.
Foam Leaf Matching
Cut each foam leaf in half. You can do a straight line, zig-zags, or curvy lines when you cut. Mix up the leaves for your kids to search through and match up!
Alphabet Soup
Take the label off a can and tape it on my alphabet soup label! Once they are done with one recipe, repeat for another!
Letter Stamping
On a piece of paper, write the letters of the alphabet in colored markers! The kids will use the stamps and stamp pad to find the match for each letter!
Chalk Squirt Letters
Say a letter for your child to find! They can also go in order of the letters of their name!
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