Sammy and I are just beginning to work on some alphabet matching games.  He is becoming familiar with most uppercase letters now, so I am beginning to introduce lowercase.  I have found the easiest way for wee ones to understand the relationship between upper and lowercase letters is through alphabet matching games.

We were up North this weekend celebrating baby Benjamin’s first birthday (I can’t believe it!) During his birthday party we played this alphabet matching game – family style.  It was a nice introduction for Sammy as he was just helping Madeline with the matching.  He was looking for the letters and being introduced to the look of lowercase letters.

Here is how we played this Alphabet Matching Game: On The Run!

I snuck outside and hung up a lowercase letter secret message, “happy birthday ben”

I then hid the uppercase letters in a nearby bush.  I had intended on making this game more of a scavenger hunt, but it was awfully wet – so I improvised.

I told the kids there was a special birthday message game outside. Their job was to match all of the letters and figure out the birthday message.

First Madeline called out the letter Sammy was to hunt for.

Sammy would find the letter and hand it to Benjamin who would ‘run’ (or rather, be carried by a running adult with Sammy tagging along beside) to Madeline.  Benjamin is beginning to walk – but not yet a runner!  Madeline would show Sammy the matching letters and call out the next letter to be found.

This matching game was a great introduction to lowercase letters as Sammy was simply being exposed to the look of lowercase letters. He noted how some letters looked very similar (P and p) whereas others looked completely different (E and e).

We will be looking into similarities and differences between upper and lowercase letters and playing more fun alphabet matching games in the weeks to come.

Have you worked on lowercase letters with your preschooler?