Alphabet Project

Since last December, we have been working on a large-scale alphabet project where we do a craft for each uppercase and lowercase letter. I'm posting the pictures here because I thought you might want to see what the kids are doing, I'd like to have a record of this project, and I thought someone else might be able to use the ideas. 

I did it with a 5, 4, 3, and (partway through), with a 2 year old. The 5 and 4 year old could mostly do it on their own if I showed them what to do, although the result was sometimes a bit messy. They already knew their alphabet, so this was mostly for fun, for art, and to learn to follow directions, as well as to reinforce what was previously learned. The 3 year old needed some assistance, worked on his fine motor skills and learning to do things independently, and mastered all of the alphabet sounds. The 2 year old needed a lot of assistance and probably doesn't know her alphabet at all, but I'd like to think it helped her with her fine motor skills, provided early exposure, helped her with English as a second language, and gave her a chance to enjoy being part of a group. Homeschooling is fun! It's cool that you can help so many different ages with different skills, even when they are working on the same project.

I will say, I am relieved to be done and finally move on to some different types of art projects! I have all kinds of exciting ones pinned on my Pinterest board, and the baby home walls are getting painted this coming week, so it's time to take all of our old projects down, file them away in the flip file, and start fresh!

Most of these crafts are not original - I got a lot of ideas from Pinterest, but the pictures are all my own. (If any of the original creators happen to see this and would like me to link to their page, please let me know.) I found this post to be particularly helpful in thinking of ideas for the lowercase letters. This one gave me a lot of inspiration as well.

I set a goal of not spending any money on this project, so I didn't go out and buy supplies. Thankfully I have a big stash of random scrapbooking paper, and we already have colored paper at the baby home as we color-code the babies for recording purposes. For the rest of the stuff, I scavenged around the house and found various items, such as:

- Old magazines given away for free from the local thrift store

- Sequins from a broken cup - one of those old ones that used to be popular years ago with double walls and liquid inside. I used to have a whole collection - I miss them!

- Random paper I found in the garage

- Porridge bags, the foil packet type (for the silver spikes on the dragon, the horn on the unicorn, etc.)

- Old crepe paper

- Muffin liners

- Pieces of cardboard

- The netting from butternut, oranges, etc.

- Seed beads from who knows where

- My fabric collection

- Old jeans

- Rice from our sensory bin

Etc. It helps that I never throw away anything that remotely looks like it could be used for crafting!

In addition to these crafts, we took one letter a week (for 26 weeks) and glued magazine pictures starting with that letter to a piece of paper. The first time, I had the kids help me look for the pictures themselves. I guess this would be ideal, but honestly, it took a very long time, and some letters are very hard to find pictures for. (For letters like Q and X, I had to print out pictures.) So, I started cutting out the pictures ahead of time and just going through them with the kids once it was time for our craft. We hung the 3 year old's paper on the fridge for the week so he could look at it and self-teach, which he enjoyed greatly. As the project went on, I compiled them into a flip file (a little booklet of clear slipcovers) so he could flip through it and look at his book that he had made.

He also really enjoyed the Akili's Alphabet videos on YouTube. 

We made up our own little song to the tune of another alphabet song and sang it every day while pointing at the uppercase letters. (Don't forget to do the motions...use your imagination!) It's definitely not great songwriting, but it did its job when it came to knowledge retention...it certainly got stuck in our heads. The three year old enjoyed it very much! He learned the alphabet sounds rather than the letter names.

A is for Alligator, a-a-alligator

B is for Buttons, b-b-buttons

C is for Caterpillar, crawling, crawling caterpillar

D is for Dragon, and dragons go "ROAR!"

E is for Elephant, *elephant noise* goes the elephant

F is for Flamingo and they stand on one leg

G is for Gumball, yummy yummy gumball

H is for Horse and horses go "Neigh!"

I is for Ice cream, *lick lick* ice cream

J is for Jellyfish, wiggle like a jellyfish

K is for Kangaroo, hop like a kangaroo

L is for Light, l-l-light

M is for Mouse, m-m-mouse

N is for Night, go night-night

O is for Orange, eat your yummy orange

P is for Pig, p-p-pig

Q(u) is for Queen, qu-qu-queen

R is for Rainbow, r-r-rainbow

S is for Snake, sssslither like a snake

T is for Tiger, tigers also go "ROAR!"

U is for Unicorn, unicorn has a horn

V is for Volcano and volcanos exPLODE!

W is for Watermelon, w-w-watermelon

X is for X-ray and it shows all your bones

Y is for Yo-yo, y-y-yo-yo

Z is for Zebra, z-z-zebra

We dialed it down a bit with the lowercase letters and did mostly collage art. Highly structured crafts are great for learning to follow directions, they're cute, and the kids certainly enjoyed them a lot, but they don't give them opportunity to really be artistic. Also, they're a lot of work to set up!

a is for apples

This did not turn out nearly as well defined as I would have liked, but paint is always a hit with the kids.

b is for beads - also blue

c is for cardboard

d is for dots

e is for eggs

We used plastic Easter eggs and paint for this project.

f is for fabric

g is for grass

h is for hearts

i is for ice

I froze paint in ice blocks for this one. Hint: it works a lot better if you get them a little wet.

j is for jeans

k is for key

We used a stamp pad.

l is for letters

m is for macaroni

n is for net

As you can see, netting is a bit hard to stick onto something, especially if there are a lot of little fingers ready to pull it off...

o is for orange octagons and ovals

p is for paper

q is for question marks

Think twice before you ask little fingers to glue those tiny dots on...you'll be doing it yourself!

r is for rainbow rice

s is for sequins

t is for tape

This is very good for fine motor skills for the very little ones.

u is for up

Vowels are hard, guys!

v is for vegetables

w is for words

The older kids (4&5) found this one especially cool, as they could read some of the words themselves.

x is for x-ray

Yes, that is a real x-ray - I have to get x-rayed for tuberculosis every time I renew my visa, and they give me the x-ray, so this time I decided to save it and cut it up for our x craft. Is it really even a craft? Barely - but the kids thought it was pretty cool!

y is for yarn

z is for zipper