Have Some Fun Making an ABC Book with Your Preschoolers

MATERIALS:

• 15 sheets of poster board, size you would like your book to be
• hole punch
• 3 book rings
• highly tactile material (sandpaper, felt, faux fur, lace, puff paint, etc.)
• large alphabet stencils
• adhesive
• magazines, child-sized scissors, glue sticks

STEPS:

You will be working on the individual page of your ABC book that corresponds with the letter you are focusing on.

Before preschoolers begin their contribution to the page, cut the letter out of the material you are using and adhere to poster board. Spend time talking about the letter, the sound it makes, and words that begin with that letter.

Now it is time for your preschoolers to work on their fine motor skills while practicing letter/sound recognition. Have them cut appropriate pictures from magazines and glue to the poster board. As pages are completed, put them in order and bind book using book rings. Allow the authors of this book sign the back cover when they are finished with their work. They will love pulling this book off the shelf to read it and share it with others. This book has been a successful auction item at the end of the year for our annual fund raiser.

There are endless ways to practice letter/sound recognition. Here are two of my favorite ABC preschool activities:

ABC Scavenger Hunt -Have preschoolers search for items that begin with the letter you are working on. List or display in a prominent area.

Alphabet Soup - Decorate a paper bag with an ABC theme to use during circle time. As you work on a certain letter, place items that begin with that letter in the bag. Have preschoolers close their eyes, reach in the bag and guess what they have grabbed based on how it feels and the letter it starts with. Once they are comfortable with the letter you can increase the difficulty by placing some objects that do not start with the correct letter and have them tell you whether the item belongs in the bag or not.

As you are learning about letters and making an ABC book, don't forget about the great alphabet books already out there.

Aardvarks, Disembark! by Ann Jonas, Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert, and Pedro, His Perro and the Alphabet Sombrero by Lynn Reed are good books to start with.

You can also find how to make a preschool alphabet book, right here at Bright Hub!