Our study of the Alphabet is going well and the children are doing alphabet puzzles, using stencils to practise their letter shapes and fine motor skills, working on a practice sheet for their names, playing with a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and letters, writing in a special book with black board spaces on it, reading alphabet books and working together on an alphabet workbook. They are tracing fuzzy letters with their fingers and playing with letter magnets.
Each day we add a new letter to the wall and another verse to one of our songs. Your child has probably sung it to you. It is to the tune of Frere Jacques and we sing it as an echo song where the children echo the leader:
A starts apple
(echo) A starts apple
Aaaa, Aaaaa, Aaaaa
(echo) Aaaaa, Aaaaa, Aaaaa,
B starts balloon
(echo) B starts balloon
Bbbbb, Bbbbbb, Bbbbb
(echo) Bbbbbb, Bbbbbb, Bbbbbb.
And so on through the letters. You should have received a sheet with all the letters and their sample words. You can post it somewhere visible and use it when you have time to review the sounds and letters. (Please let me know if you need a copy of this sheet and I will send it again.) The children are great at using the alphabet posted on the wall to help them sing the song and think about the alphabet. They enjoy coming in to the classroom every day and predicting what the letter of the day will be. We will be continuing to have a new letter each day until we have covered them all. There will be a few pauses in early February to celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine's day and we should be done the unit by the middle of the month. Soon we will also begin putting the letters together and reading some easy rhyming words like cat and mat. As you know, each child learns to read at his or her own speed and there is no pressure on them at this age, but whatever step they are at in the hundreds of steps to reading they can enjoy this unit and continue to progress.
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