My son is really into talking about letter sounds, although he was never officially "taught" his letters. I first introduced letters by scattering them about the house, putting them as our table centerpiece, for example. For a while our dining room table held a crystal bowl filled with alphabet blocks. What child wouldn't be curious? (And what else would I do with a crystal bowl? Yet another wedding gift I had never put to good use...)
So he started with stacking, building, and lining them up which led to "What's this say?" and "duh (the sound of the letter D) is for Daddy" and grew from there. Letter blocks are a great place to start because, if you think of it, learning the alphabet is so much like building. Letters are the building blocks of words, and can be arranged in all different ways to construct different meanings.
Our letter blocks are out on the back deck now, and some colorful wood lowercase letters have found their way to the dining room table. A moveable alphabet of sorts, Jack is combining them to make words from the sounds he knows whenever they catch his eye. Sometimes the light from the window hits them just right -- it seems to illuminate them and *spark* his interest.
Has your child ever discovered something you left scattered about your house?
I love your idea of putting blocks in the center of the table. We've had a globe as a centerpiece since Easter and it's sparked some great dinner conversations. I also agree that leaving items scattered about for them to find on their own is a great way to encourage creativity!
Posted by: melissa s. | 04 April 2008 at 11:58 AM
What a neat idea. Where did you get these letters?
Posted by: wesleyjeanne | 06 May 2008 at 09:25 PM
Those letters are part of a Melissa and Doug spelling toy that Jack got for Christmas (http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-and-Doug-See-Spell/dp/B0007Y4DLG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1210681047&sr=8-2). I like them because there are multiples of most letters, so you can actually spell a word without running out of letters.
I tend to separate alphabet puzzle pieces from thier puzzle bottom because, after a short while, the puzzle is just a matching activity. After this has been mastered, there are more challenging, creative things to do with the pretty wooden letters. Like putting them in order without the help of the puzzle, for example. Or hiding a few of them in a bag and trying to guess what they are without looking. So many options!
Posted by: OTJenH | 13 May 2008 at 08:25 AM