At the Children's Garden we love to create dynamic, hands-on learning experiences to help develop essential skills. Check out these 30 fun projects that encourage literacy and language development!
1. Projects with Purpose
Kids are much more motivated to practice reading and writing if they are creating something like a special card, a birthday wish list, or even a grocery list.
Using scissors and other tools helps to make strong motor skills for writing!
Dotted lines help early writers to find confidence in their writing skills.
2. Sewing Letters
In early childhood, children are building their capacity to use their fingers and hands through a variety of activities. Hand sewing helps young readers and writers because it develops not only fine motor skills but the eyes as well.
We used the Montessori technique of 'analysis of movement'; when we are demonstrating a skill we break it down into clear simple steps.
"…the adult should be calm and act slowly so that all the details of his action may be clear to the child who is watching." – Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood
"…the adult should be calm and act slowly so that all the details of his action may be clear to the child who is watching." – Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood
We started off sewing the first letter of our names.
Then we made enough letters to start making words and sentences.
3. Fairy Letters
After the sewing exercise the kids were easily able to recognize the first letter of their names with these fairy letter coloring sheets.
A neat way to highlight children's art work is to outline it in sharpie and cut out around the shapes.
The kids loved seeing their alphabet fairies turned into a magical fairyland!
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4. The Fairy's Secret Alphabet
Use children's interests as motivation for learning! Our Pre K class is really enjoying learning the sounds of the alphabet. The following project was inspired by Fairy Dust Teaching:
"I love making special gems and jewels to help motivate my students to learn critical skills like letters, letter sounds and sight words.
I have found that it can be highly motivating to students who are struggling. This is most powerful if you introduce the jewels through a little story:
Once, a long time ago, there lived a little fairy. She was no ordinary fairy. She was an Alphabet Fairy. Yup. She wore a beautiful Pink Cape and had a little blue bag. She carried in her very secret bag - secret jewels.
Shhhh - - I will tell you Alphabet Fairy’s secret. (I pull out a blue bag).
Alphabet Fairy loved all the sounds of the letters. One day she was telling her best friend the Tooth Fairy how much she loved letters and their sounds. “I wish I could let children know how special the letters and their sounds are. . . .”
Just then, the Tooth Fairy had an idea. “I know! You could leave one of your special sparkling letter jewels every time a child learns a new letter and it’s sound!”
Alphabet Fairy danced and danced. “Yes! Just think! They could have a bag full of 26 sparkling jewels and love the letters as much as I do!”
From that day on - she shared the jewels with as many children as she could.
(I open the bag and pour a pile of letter jewels in my hand.)
(I tell the children) The Alphabet Fairy has given me the jewels to share with you as you learn your letters and sounds."
"I love making special gems and jewels to help motivate my students to learn critical skills like letters, letter sounds and sight words.
I have found that it can be highly motivating to students who are struggling. This is most powerful if you introduce the jewels through a little story:
Once, a long time ago, there lived a little fairy. She was no ordinary fairy. She was an Alphabet Fairy. Yup. She wore a beautiful Pink Cape and had a little blue bag. She carried in her very secret bag - secret jewels.
Shhhh - - I will tell you Alphabet Fairy’s secret. (I pull out a blue bag).
Alphabet Fairy loved all the sounds of the letters. One day she was telling her best friend the Tooth Fairy how much she loved letters and their sounds. “I wish I could let children know how special the letters and their sounds are. . . .”
Just then, the Tooth Fairy had an idea. “I know! You could leave one of your special sparkling letter jewels every time a child learns a new letter and it’s sound!”
Alphabet Fairy danced and danced. “Yes! Just think! They could have a bag full of 26 sparkling jewels and love the letters as much as I do!”
From that day on - she shared the jewels with as many children as she could.
(I open the bag and pour a pile of letter jewels in my hand.)
(I tell the children) The Alphabet Fairy has given me the jewels to share with you as you learn your letters and sounds."
5. Letter Collages
Learning to identify and spell your name is a beloved preschool favorite!
6. Matching Letters
7. Tracing Letters
8. Magnetic Alphabet Tracing Board
This fun board encompasses sight, sound, and touch skills as children learn how to write letters by tracing the directional arrows and develop writing motor skills.
The kids love the sound of the magnet pulling the metal balls into the shapes of the letters!
9. Alphabet Maze
We also love this maze board that helps us to master letter identification and alphabet order!
10. Playdough Letters
11. Word Puzzles
Working together on puzzles is a great time for parents or teachers to encourage children to communicate their thoughts and ideas.
12. Alphabet Stencils
13. Alphabet Stamps
Some explored with random letters, creating really long nonsense words.
While others were eager to practice their name mastery.
14. Hieroglyphic Alphabet
The kids loved exploring and matching these hieroglyph stamps while gaining a deeper understanding of the history of our alphabet!
15. Alphabet Crayon Rubbings
The kids were delighted when they saw the first letter of thier name appear as well as other pictures!
16. Book Nook
Providing a comfy spot and a variety of eye-level books supports the independent exploration of pre-readers.
17. Read Aloud
Studies show that reading books aloud to toddlers is important because the earlier children acquire language, the more likely they are to master it.
“You are stretching them in vocabulary and grammar at an early age. You are preparing them to be expert language users, and indirectly you are going to facilitate their learning to read.
Encouraging older children to sound out words and explaining what a word means if it isn’t clear in the context of the story will help build children’s vocabularies.
Allowing children to pick the books they are interested in and turn the pages themselves keeps them active and engaged in learning.
Reading to children also teaches them to listen, and good listeners are going to be good readers."
- Dominic Massaro
For more details on the research read:
“Two Different Communication Genres and Implications for Vocabulary Development and Learning to Read” by Dominic W. Massaro, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2015
“You are stretching them in vocabulary and grammar at an early age. You are preparing them to be expert language users, and indirectly you are going to facilitate their learning to read.
Encouraging older children to sound out words and explaining what a word means if it isn’t clear in the context of the story will help build children’s vocabularies.
Allowing children to pick the books they are interested in and turn the pages themselves keeps them active and engaged in learning.
Reading to children also teaches them to listen, and good listeners are going to be good readers."
- Dominic Massaro
For more details on the research read:
“Two Different Communication Genres and Implications for Vocabulary Development and Learning to Read” by Dominic W. Massaro, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2015
19. Nature Letters
First we explored making letters out of sticks, forming the alphabet, and writing our own names.
Then we added letters on stones too!
Using nature-inspired loose parts to make letters and words creates a beautiful expression of language.
20. Yoga Letters
These ABC Yoga cards by Rainbow Kids Yoga are so much fun! The kids loved doing the poses for the first letter of their names!
L
I
As we did our letter posture we also made all the different sounds the letters can make!
J
M
R
A
21. Read a Recipe
How we love to add nutritious ingredients to our favorite recipes :)
The kids loved these Sweet Potato Avocado Brownies! And it was fun learning to read the recipe together on the outdoor chalkboard.
The kids loved these Sweet Potato Avocado Brownies! And it was fun learning to read the recipe together on the outdoor chalkboard.
Mix together the above ingredients and add 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt and 2 TBS melted coconut oil.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
The kids gave these a thumbs up!
22. The Language of Poetry
We were inspired by this Valentine book by Gail Gibbons to explore some poetry!
The kids especially enjoyed these haikus so we came up with a cool haiku project below.
23. Heart Haikus!
This was such a fun original idea! We wrote out nature inspired, one syllable, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and a couple of prepositions on heart shaped sticky notes. Then the kids counted out the haiku rhythm of 5, 7, 5.
The readers had fun carefully selecting their words.
The pre-readers enjoyed randomly choosing their words and being surprised when the finished product is read to them.
24. Rhyming Poetry
These poetry books by Jane Yolen were an intriguing way to introduce rhyming while also integrating nature, counting, and color.
By far, the favorite book of the month is Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas. Just say "No Bob!" to the kids and expect riotous laughter :)
25. Montessori Phonetic Reading Blocks
These are a fun way to learn about different vowel sounds and practice rhyming.
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26. Poetry Pebbles
These poetry pebbles provided a fun opportunity to express our imaginations and a rich experience in oral language and storytelling.
27. Storytelling with Blocks
After reading "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" by Mo Willems the kids crafted their own story by creating a huge bus that can fit all the pigeons on the planet!
And these guys created bridges for the troll from the classic fairy tale Three Billy Goats Gruff. There were some excellent troll impersonations!
28. Beading Hearts
While not an obvious literacy activity, we presented the beads and sorting tray in a left-to-right order. Materials in Montessori Education are presented in this order as an indirect preparation for reading and writing.
29. Educational Texts
Incorporating a variety of texts into projects and play introduces children to all the different ways language can be used to communicate ideas as well as unusual or difficult words that are new to them.
30. Use Descriptive Language
When snacking in the garden it's fun to explore new and interesting words to describe our experience - the broccoli flowers are "crunchy, ticklish, fragrant".
See you next time!
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