Are you ready to dive into some name letter learning? Or maybe matching uppercase and lowercase letters. Or perhaps counting, adding, or multiplying? Or maybe you are just here for the ‘sticky’ puns. No matter what you are after, this awesome name letter activity has it!
Norah has recently become fascinated (completely obsessed) with bandaids. Bandaids and Polysporin to be exact. It all started with her first-ever skinned elbow while running and playing outside. The bandaid and Polysporin helped, of course, as did the snuggles.
Next, it was a much smaller booboo caused by a sandal strap. Bandaid, Polysporin, and snuggles were required.
Then it was a mosquito bite. Hold the snuggles—the only thing that would suffice was a bandaid.
And now, just about any fleck of anything she finds on her arms or legs (even if it is a leaf that can be brushed off) seems to bring out this immense desire for a bandaid.
I mean, I totally get it. Bandaids are pretty awesome. They are like stickers for your body.
Anyway, I should mention that this is NOT a sponsored post for bandaids, ha! Just a post for toddlers who tend to become a bit obsessive about the sticky little bands of fun.
ANYWAY, if there is one thing I have learned from being a Mama for as long as I have (we will skip the details, but trust me, I’m old), it is that when a child is obsessed with something, that something needs to be used for learning. It really makes the learning ‘stick’! (And there is your pun, my friend).
The Band-Aid Name Letter Activity
For this activity, all you need is popsicle sticks and bandaids. You will note in the pictures the obscene number of bandaids my toddler is wearing. We haven’t yet enacted the ‘no blood, no bandaid’ policy as we have had to with my older children, but little Norah is well on her way.
Since we have started to play with name letters for Norah, I wrote her name letters on the bandaids and stuck them to the table to form little tunnels.
Next, I wrote her name letters on the popsicle sticks. We are still working on matching and recognizing the letter names and sounds. If your child is familiar with his or her letters, you could do some lowercase and uppercase letter matching.
And if your child is familiar with his or her name letters and sounds, you could move on to the first letter grouping for teaching the alphabet! These Printable Letter and Sound Cards include that first grouping, SATIPN, as well as a sample of my learn-to-read program, How Wee Read. Grab yours right here:
More Ways to Play & Learn
The idea is super simple—it’s kinda my thing, keeping things super simple. Little ones simply match the letters by popping popsicle sticks under the bandaid tunnels. Easy peasy, and can be used in so many different ways:
- Name letter matching
- Alphabet matching (but not in ABC order)
- Spelling: Put a picture on the bandaid and letters on the popsicle sticks. You might put a picture of a cat on the bandaid and then the letters on three popsicle sticks for your child to pop in the bandaid tunnel.
- Counting: The number 2 on a bandaid, and your child pops in 2 popsicle sticks.
- Adding or Subtracting: Same idea as above, but with an addition or subtraction fact on the bandaid.
- Multiplying or Dividing: Same as above.
PLUS—and this was a realization made by my Benjamin—these bandaid tunnels are also super fun for shooting the popsicle sticks through. A whole game could be created about this! I’m sure Ben will come up with it as we are working on our multiplication. All great ideas seem to come to him when he is avoiding multiplication.
I hope this idea is perfect for you and yours! Thank you so much for reading, sweet friend!
xo
Sarah
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