I thought it was time to share some alphabet activities for preschoolers. Alphabet activities and How Wee Learn definitely seem to go hand in hand!
I have shared with you oodles of letter activities before AND a (rather lengthy) post about why I don’t actually suggest teaching letters in ABC order. But I have not shared with you a great, big, huge resource full of alphabet activities—until now, my friends.
Just before we dive right in, I want to ensure you have already received my free resource for teaching the first group of letters: s, a, t, i, p, and n. If you haven’t, please grab yourself a copy right here:
This freebie also includes a sample of my learn-to-read program, How Wee Read. How Wee Read covers it all, from rhyming to reading in 60 sequential, simple, and beautiful lessons:
- Step One: Phonological Awareness (7 lessons)
- Step Two: Letters, Sounds, and Blending (12 lessons)
- Step Three: Special Rules (5 lessons)
- Step Four: Familiar Readers (36 lessons)
You can learn more about How Wee Read right here.
But back to that magical letter order… It is so important that children learn their letters in this special order! So important, in fact, that the teacher in me just needed to tell you all about this method and exactly how to teach those letters to your little ones. SO just before we dive into the alphabet activities, have a little peek at this video:
Alright, you’ve got your FREE Beginning Letter Sound Cards? Did you watch my video? Do you know exactly which order to introduce those letters to your little one (and why)? Then it’s time, friends. Let’s keep that letter learning fun and exciting!
The Most Awesome Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers
Sensory Letter Activities
Alphabet Activities with No Pencil Required – This is a fabulous sensory activity for preschoolers! Little hands can form all of the letters of the alphabet using popsicle sticks and pipecleaners on this sticky wall.
ABC Hide and Seek by Sunshine and Chaos – Grab any play letters you may have (magnets, puzzle pieces, bath letters) and hide them in a sensory bin of your choice (rice, cornmeal, sand). Ahhh, activity simplicity at its best.
Dirt Play Dough + Rock Writing Tray by Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls – Letter activities for preschoolers can be especially engaging when kids have the chance to use materials they love. Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls shares their natural playdough recipe via this post. Substitute rocks, beads, beans, marbles, buttons, or whatever you have on hand for making the letters.
Sprinkle Sensory Writing Bag by Active Littles (link no longer available) – Sprinkles are such a fun and colorful filler for this writing bag. Using popsicle sticks as a writing tool is such a great way to ensure your kiddo’s letter creations come out clearly.
Alphabet Soup by The Letters of Literacy – Grab a pot and a ladle and make ACTUAL alphabet soup with your preschooler! Scoop out the letters you need for a sorting activity of your choice: in separate soup bowls, sort upper case and lower case, vowels and consonants, or rounded letters vs. not rounded letters. So many possibilities!
Find it, Write it, Draw it by Views from a Step Stool – This idea can easily be adapted to whatever materials you have at home. Have your preschooler find a letter in a sensory bin and place it on a page. Beside the letter, they can try to write it, and then they can draw a picture of something that begins with that letter. Organize the page however you’d like, leaving enough room for your child’s letter writing and drawings.
Clothespin Letter Dig and Match by Happy Toddler Playtime – I love how simple this engaging letter activity for preschool is to set up. Harness the secret magnetic power of clothespins by tossing them into a sensory bin and challenging your child to fish them out with their magic magnetic wand before matching them onto a simple homemade letter card.
Bubble Wrap Letter Play by NurtureStore – Who can resist a good bubble wrap popping? If your child doesn’t just go bananas and squish the entire sheet of bubble wrap at once (…mine would), add a little learning fun by writing letters on the bubbles and calling those out for your child to pop. They can pop all lowercase letters, all the letters of their name, etc. And did you know popping bubble wrap strengthens little fingers? I know you needed another reason to pop bubble wrap, so I thought I’d mention that…
Alphabet Games
ABC Go Fish – Go Fish is a great “first card game” for little ones because it’s straightforward and simple to understand. It is also great for teaching because as you play, you can gently course correct if you don’t hand your child the card they were expecting (I asked for an 8, mommy. Oh, that’s a 6!). We show you how to enjoy all the benefits of Go Fish with letters instead of numbers!
The Letter Monster Alphabet Game – This silly alphabet activity is a hit with all those little ones! This monster only likes items that start with certain sounds—check it out through the link; you will love it!
Match Me! The Christmas Alphabet Game – While this game is set up to be used at Christmas time, you could simply change the theme and play this letter-matching activity at any time of the year.
Sort the Alphabet – Preschoolers can learn so much by simply playing with and sorting those alphabet letters!
Alphabet Matching Game on the RUN! – We all know that little ones love to MOVE! This fun activity gets those little ones outside and running around to find letters.
An A-Maze-ing Learning Letters Game – Is there anything you cannot do with painter’s tape? This is an easy maze with a very fun letter-learning twist!
Alphabet Kaboom by The Many Little Joys – Collect as many letters of the alphabet by a set time before picking up a popsicle stick that says Kaboom! Whoever has the most letters in their hand wins. This game sounds very fun and can easily be adapted for learning other topics as well. Some preschoolers might have a hard time giving up their letters and losing to a parent or another sibling. You may just have to be mindful of this before proceeding and prepare for a teachable moment.
Alphabet Rescue by Entertain Your Toddler – This fabulously fun alphabet game is great for giving your child a secondary purpose for matching their letters. It’s a race around the clock to save these letters and get them home safely!
ABC Letter Match – Here at How Wee Learn, we also taped down our letters for a fun letter-matching game, but the goal was to pair up upper and lower case letters.
The Letter Slap Game by Mom Life Made Easy – Rest assured, no one gets hurt while playing this fun, quick-paced game! Write large letters on any surface (even on separate papers taped to the wall), then call out a letter or letter sound and challenge your preschooler to “slap” or tap it as fast as they can!
Paper Plate Memory Game by Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls – Letter activities for preschool that engage my child’s memory? Yes, please! Did you say it’s a fun game to boot? Pass me the paper plates! We are making this one! Children of all ages will love challenging themselves to find matching letters. Something tells me this activity could take a significant amount of time to play… hmmm…
Alphabet Bingo by Live Life Mom – I love how Live Life Mom incorporated a salad tosser to make this alphabet bingo game more authentic. This engaging letter-learning activity will have your preschooler begging you to play again!
Ball Sweep Alphabet Game by Fun Learning for Kids – Tape letters to your floor and challenge your preschooler to roll the ball over the letter you call out with their broom or a hockey stick. Develop gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and learn letters in one fell sweep… I mean, swoop.
A Writing Treasure Map by Days with Grey – Get your little one busily playing and practicing those writing skills with this fun treasure map! This invitation to play is sure to engage.
Letter Learning with Gross Motor Play
Scoop and Dump the Alphabet Activity – Write different letters on rocks or another item your child can scoop and dump with a truck. Then have them transport their letters to the right stop (or match the rock letters to their right card)!
Alphabet Find by Busy Toddler – Letter activities for preschool with endless possibilities are my favorite! Set up the letters of the alphabet throughout your house, call out whatever letters or sounds you are working on with your preschooler, and watch them go on a mad dash to find them! A great way to keep their little bodies and minds moving!
Sponge Letter Stomp by Pre-K Pages – Use a permanent marker to write each alphabet letter on a sponge. Invite your preschooler to stomp on the letter you call out for some squishy gross motor fun!
Kick the Cup by Fun Learning for Kids – This game can be played with some variations, and it is always fun to see where our kiddos take the activities we set up for them. At Fun Learning for Kids, they enjoyed kicking the ball at the cups and identifying the letters they knocked down.
Post-it Alphabet Race by Entertain Your Toddler – For this fun race, write letters on sticky notes and paste them on a wall. Call out a letter for your preschooler to grab and race to stick it to another location. Your little one can stick it randomly on the new wall, or you can have them categorize the letters. For example, lowercase letters go on the wall beside the couch, and uppercase letters go on the wall beside the chair.
Alphabet Basketball by School Time Snippets – The combination of fine motor skills (crumpling paper) and gross motor skills (throwing) in this letter activity for preschoolers is very exciting! Place your paper letters on the ground, call them out, and have your preschooler crumple them into a ball and toss them in the basket. If you don’t have a basketball net, you can use a cardboard box or a laundry basket.
Letter Learning for Fine-Motor Fine-Tuning
Fingerpaint Names by Happy Toddler Playtime – Fingerpainting your child’s name is a great fine motor activity to help your child recognize the letters of their name and their formation.
Sticker Name Recognition by Busy Toddler – This preschool letter activity is great for getting a child to move from simply recognizing what their name looks like visually to recognizing and remembering the individual letters that make up the whole.
Name Rubbings by Toddler at Play – Write your child’s name on cardstock rectangles or flashcards using a hot glue gun. Then have them place the letters under white cardstock and color over the ridges in crayon. This activity is great for developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills while producing a lovely name craft. This could become a snazzy name sign for a child’s bedroom door.
Plastic Egg Letter Match by Large Family Table – Toss these letter halves into a bin, and— VOILA!—you have an easy and quiet letter learning activity. Write the letters on non-matching colors for an added challenge.
Letter Pounding by I Can Teach My Child – This engaging letter-learning activity is easily adaptable for preschoolers and older kids. Children can decide to hammer their golf tees into the styrofoam or place them in with their hands. Both accomplish the learning goal, and both help strengthen fine motor skills.
ABC Apple Lacing by 123Homeschool4me – Lacing and letter learning? Alphabet alliteration? (Heehee) What a clever way to combine letter recognition with fine motor skill development.
Alphabet Geoboard by A Little Pinch of Perfect – The teacher in me got a little giddy when I saw this activity! What an exciting challenge for little ones to match their letters while strengthening their little fingers!
Q-tip Letter Erase by Toddler at Play – This brilliant activity can be done on a whiteboard or a window with dry-erase markers. Preschoolers with more practice in letter writing may enjoy erasing the letters by tracing over their shape. All is not lost if your child does not choose to do this because they are still practicing letter recognition.
Even More Alphabet Activities for Kids…
Make a Letter – This idea is just about as simple as they come. The post explains why loose parts are so important for children.
Watermelon Seed Letters – If it happens to be summertime, why not play with these watermelon seed letters? This quiet time activity is easy to set us and perfect for little alphabet learners.
Pool Noodle Alphabet Match by A Dab of Glue Will Do – I love these big, chunky pool noodle letters! They are so inviting and are full of possibilities for fun! Place one set of lower or uppercase letters on a surface with a popsicle stick inside, and ask your child to find the matching letter and place it on top. These pool noodle letters can be used for bath time or outdoor water fun. They can be placed in a soapy sensory bin, hidden indoors, or outside for an exciting alphabet hunt!
Newspaper Letter Hunt by Where Imagination Grows – One of the many exciting early learning moments is when your child randomly points at a letter on your t-shirt or a cereal box and calls it out with joyous excitement like they just found a treasure: “O!” This letter activity for preschool takes that excitement to a whole new level by having your toddler go on a letter hunt in real big people texts, like flyers, magazines, and newspapers. This is some very important sleuthing work, my friends!
Cotton Swab Letters by The OT Toolbox – A food coloring and flour mixture are baked onto cotton swabs to create this fun manipulative. It is fantastic for letter formation and can also be used to make numbers and build shapes.
Paper Plate Letter Match by Hands On as We Grow – Place a letter you want your child to identify in the center of the plate and ask them to find the matching letter around the rim. Once they find it, they can fold it into the center. This resourceful letter-learning activity can be done on both sides of the paper plate for different letters and can be reused many times. Hands On as We Grow shares additional ways that this paper plate activity can be used for other learning as well.
Cookie Cutter Letter Painting by No Time for Flashcards – This simple craft gets kiddos having fun with painting while exposing them to the alphabet. Call out letters to stamp with or create letter patterns for added fun.
There you have them, friends!! Tons of alphabet activities for preschoolers. It is so important that we keep this learning fun and playful for our little ones.
Children learn best through play—so let’s meet these little ones exactly where they are and play our way into letter learning fun.
For absolutely everything you need to teach your child to read—from rhyming to reading—take a peek at How Wee Read right here:
https://shop.howweelearn.com/pages/how-wee-read
Thank you so much for reading!
xo
Sarah
Teaching Letter Recognition – What Order to Introduce Letters
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