This activity reinforces letter recognition while exercising gross motor skills.
Learning Area(s): Reading and Writing; Physical Development
MATERIALS
- Markers
- Paper (8.5×11” works well)
LET'S PLAY
Choose six letters; they can be letters in your child’s name or random letters. Use the marker to write one letter on each piece of paper. Scatter the papers in throughout the room on the floor.
Call out one letter and have your child find it and stomp on it. You can say: “I see the letter M. Can you find the letter M? Can you stomp on the letter M? Stomp, stomp, stomp!” If your child goes to the correct letter, have him repeat the letter name. Reinforce his response by saying, “Yes! That’s the letter M, great job!”. If he stomps on a different letter, let him know what letter he found and point out the correct letter, guiding him to stomp on that letter. You can also take some time to describe the features of the correct letter to help him remember for next time. For example, “This one is the M. See how the straight lines go up, down, up, down?” (while making these motions with your finger).
Continue the game by calling out the names of the other letters and helping your child find them and stomp on them. Go back to any that he missed the first time to provide extra practice. Once your child is familiar with the game, you can also vary the movements to include hopping, crawling, walking backwards, kneeling on, or spinning to letters!
TIPS
- To begin, use all uppercase letters. When your child has mastered identifying uppercase letters, you can switch to lowercase letters, then try a combination of upper- and lowercase letters.
- One way to make this game more challenging for children who can name all the letters is to call out the sound the letter makes. “This letter says /m/ (‘mmm’). Can you stomp on the letter that makes the sound /m/?” As your child stomps on the letter, have him repeat the letter sound (rather than the letter’s name). For added challenge, have him say a word that begins with that letter.
- If your child is starting to read, you can use sight words to play this game.