Alphabet fun with the foam mat!

Activities with tots and early pre-schoolers don't usually last very long and a simple activity could just take up say about 10min of your time. But while the actual activity may seem short, the child still learns from it and most importantly, both you and the child have fun!

Here are two activities I did with Alicia yesterday (one after breakfast and the other after dinner).

Matching lower and upper case:

(Alicia's familiar with the upper case but not so with the lower case so I focused on the lower case for this activity)

1) Remove some of the lower case alphabets from the mat: I got her to help out with that. :) I focused on 12 letters (pick less if your child isn't so familiar with the alphabets yet); try to avoid going for all the alphabets as the child would usually tire of the activity before it's over so just take your child's cue.

2) Explain what you want your tot to do: match the lower case to the upper case (place them back on the mat).  

3) Go through 1 example (or more if necessary): I got her to name the alphabet first then asked her what sound it makes before getting her to place it back in the right place.

4) Repeat the procedure.

5) Stop when your tot starts to lose interest.

Busy fitting the 's' back in

 

'b' and 'h'!

Figuring out where the 'r' goes...

Our after-dinner activity:

Identifying the alphabet

Since we were having fun in her room, I decided that I'd play another alphabet game with her:

I called out one of the alphabets and I quickly (and very enthusiastically - you need lots of this when interacting with a tot!) jumped onto the letter and repeated it a few times with different alphabets.

After a few times, she got a hang of what she was supposed to do and I'd say, 'Alicia, can you jump onto the letter (for instance), X?' We got through a few alphabets before she decided to call it quits so we moved on to other activities... 

On to the letter X!

It was so difficult to get photos of her since she was busy moving about looking for the alphabets! lol.

If you have such a foam mat at home too, do try out these activities! :) Have FUN!