Fun Letter Recognition Game

I bought these little wooden alphabet beads at a craft store back before Christmas for a couple of dollars.  Jay has had lots of fun stringing them, but I really wanted to find a way to take advantage of the alphabet letters on them.  So I made up a fun little game that he has really enjoyed playing! 

Jay loves cars, and knows that you go when the light is green, and stop when the light is red.  So I took advantage of that and made him a string of  ABC beads.  I used green at the start of the alphabet and red at the end of the alphabet.  This helps him know which end to start with when we use the beads to sing our ABC's.  So we sing our ABC's and touch the corresponding letter bead as we sing. 

I also have him look through the loose beads to find all of the letters of the alphabet and place them next to the ones on our ABC string of beads. 

Then to take it a step further, we play a little game with the extra beads.  I use some of the loose beads to spell out a simple word like "JAY" and then Jay looks through the other loose beads to find the letters he needs to make the same word.  We always sound out each letter and locate it on the alphabet string before he starts looking.  If I leave all of the beads for Jay to sort through to find the letters he needs, he gets a little overwhelmed.  So I took a jar lid and I put the letters he needs to spell the word we are working on along with 10 or so extra beads into the jar lid.  This makes it easier for him, and we can play for longer without him getting bored!

Jay just loves playing this game, so I thought I would share it.  You can use beads like I do, scrabble tiles, or even fridge magnets for your letters.  This is a good way to work on letter recognition and to start working towards teaching your kiddo to read basic words!  Just make sure you keep it fun, and don't make it feel like work!