Our Executive School Directors worked together to provide our TGS families with various projects that bring our curriculum into your living room. From creating art projects and learning math skills to making fun, healthy snacks, there are many opportunities for learning and interaction with your young children. We hope you enjoy engaging in these creative developmental activities with your children. This post shares our favorite activities to develop literacy and reading skills in toddlers and preschoolers at home.
Infants, Toddlers, and Twos
Letter Spray Away
Help children identify letters with this fun summer activity.
You’ll need:
- Chalk
- Spray bottle with water
Write letters on the sidewalk or driveway using sidewalk chalk. Have the child use a spray bottle filled with water to make the letters vanish!
Flower Scavenger Hunt
Practice color recognition through exploring things that grow.
You’ll need:
- Sturdy walking shoes and curious eyes
Take a walk through nature and see if you can find all the colors of the rainbow on your walk.
Nature Letter Tracing
This activity helps children begin to recognize the letters in their name.
- Sidewalk chalk
- Items found in nature
Write your child’s name in sidewalk chalk. Find and collect items in nature to cover the letters in the name. Extend the activity by allowing your child to draw lines, swirls, and scribbles, and then cover those lines with the nature items.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree
This activity helps children gain letter recognition.
You’ll need:
- The children’s book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- If you do not have access to this book, you can find it online
- Basic crafting or art materials
Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom together, or listen to it online. Work together using any materials you have at home or outside to build a tree for alphabet letters (small branches or construction paper or paper bags twisted to make trunks, for example) or you can use chalk to draw letters on a large tree in your yard.
The Green Grass Grew All Around
Help children put the events of a story into a narrative sequence.
You’ll need:
- Just your hands for motions!
Sing “The Green Grass Grew all Around” with your child. Here is a link to the lyrics, but you can get creative and make some of your own as well. This song teaches sequencing through a series of phrase repetitions.
Threes, Fours, PreK
Very Hungry Preschooler
Preschoolers love this activity to practice sounding out letters and matching them to foods.
You’ll need:
- Paper
- Pencil, crayon, or other writing tool
- Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (video version can be found below in the Story Time section)
Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. In the story, the caterpillar eats A LOT as he prepares to enter his cocoon. Have your child write their name. Then, sound out each letter and name a food that begins with the same letter. For example, Joe’s breakfast would consist of juice, an orange, and eggs.
Sight Word Fly Swat
Help your child recognize and identify words that are used with high frequency through this activity.
You’ll need:
- Chalk
- Fly swatter (clean)
Use chalk to write words on an outdoor surface. Choose words that are used often in books that your child reads. Then, say a word aloud and have your child “swat” the word with the fly swatter.
Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Matching
Match the lowercase letter flower petal with the uppercase letter flower for this letter-matching game.
You’ll need:
- Paper
- Scissors
- Markers
Draw a few flowers and cut out the petals. On another sheet of paper, draw the center of the flower as a circle and place an uppercase letter in the circle. Write the matching lowercase letter on several petals. Do this for as many flowers as you have created. Ask your child to match the lowercase petals to the uppercase letter.
Letters in Nature
Children will practice recognizing letters and putting letters together to make words.
You’ll need:
- Cell phone or camera to take pictures
Go on a walk with your child. Look for letters that form naturally in nature as part of your environment. Take pictures of the letters. Make a collage of the pictures to make a word. Or look for the letters in your name!
Beginning Sound Scavenger Hunt
I can identify the beginning sound in words.
You’ll need:
- Variety of household objects
- any writing materials you have at home.
Go on a scavenger hunt together in your house to find an object that begins with each letter of the alphabet. Have your child practice writing the initial letter. Older children can practice writing the whole word.
Egg Word Families
Your child will practice decoding and writing words in the same word family with this springtime activity.
You’ll need:
- Plastic Easter egg
- Permanent marker (for the parent)
- Paper and pencil
Use a permanent marker to write beginning sounds on one half of the egg along the connecting edge. Write “word family” endings on the other half of the egg along the edge. Put the pieces together to match up letters and make new words. Use paper and pencil or any other writing medium to write down the words you make! Extend the activity by sorting the words into real words or made-up words.
Animal Dig
The child will identify the beginning letter of words.
You’ll need:
- Assortment of animal toys
- Letter magnets or letter
- Cut-outs
Place an assortment of animals into a bucket or bin. Add any alphabet letters you might have around the house, or make cut-outs if you don’t have any on hand. Have your child go on an animal dig, finding the letter that matches the beginning sound of the animal’s name. For older children, you can extend the activity by having them match the ending sound of the animal’s name to the corresponding letter.
Fun Reading Experiences
We hope you enjoy these fun literacy activities that make spending time together with your preschooler even more special. The Gardner School provides your child with a daily schedule that sparks their learning and supports their intellectual, social, and physical growth. Schedule a tour to see our beautiful learning spaces in action.