Literacy Matching Fun

Aodhan is really starting to explore literacy skills with more confidence, so I try to introduce a new idea, letter, sound or skill each week. This week, I thought we would play a little matching game.

The heart shapes are a little silly I suppose. We aren’t big fans of Valentine’s Day around here. As a couple Kevin and I don’t really celebrate it, and we tend to share and celebrate our love as a family every.single.day — thus we see no need for the rather artificial holiday. That said, I heart hearts. I heart chocolate. I heart crafting. I also know that Aodhan will be visually inundated with Valentine’s Day accoutrements every time we go to buy groceries or crafting supplies, so I figure that we might as well join in and use it as a chance to talk about how we don’t need a holiday to celebrate our love for each other….or an excuse to eat chocolate!

Anyhow, I cut out 52 hearts from various colours of cardstock. That gave me two hearts for each letter. I wrote each letter of the alphabet on two hearts (capital on front and lower case on back). This means that I have lots of opportunity for extension activities, such as matching lower with capital.

Today we started with just four letters and with each  match that he made, we talked about the sound and a couple of words that start with each letter. To be honest, it was too easy for him and I plan on expanding it to the whole alphabet tomorrow morning. I also pulled out our magnetic letters as well, just for the sensory/tactile element, hopefully helping him make connections between sound and shape.

We have also been doing a fun little letter scavenger hunt all day – I stuck the capital and lower case Bb around the house today and A is enjoying screaming out LETTER B!!! every time he finds another one. Love it.

I am excited to be linking to the great collaborative spaces at ABC and 123, Toys in the Dryer and Living Life Intentionally. So much great stuff from so many great mamas.