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This blog is here for you to find fun learning activities to do with your children. We share great ideas we find and love on the Internet, as well as ideas we come up with on our own! We also like to share resources we find helpful.

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Monday, December 12, 2011

Gingerbread Alphabet


We just finished up a fun week of Gingerbread activities. This was our alphabet activity. I got this idea from here: http://www.pre-kpages.com/gingerbread/. She had a free download of the pages, but it only had letters A-F, so I quickly made some of my own. You can download them here.

To prep this activity, I created the pages, printed them, then laminated pages and letters so they will hold up from year to year.


For my older children (4 and 6), I simply gave the child all of the gingerbread men pages and all of the letters (upper and lowercase) at the same time and told them to match them up. They put the upper and lowercase letters on the same man. This is something that helps them work on letter recognition and keeps them occupied for a good chunk of time. They don't need any assistance from you.



For my 2.5 year old, we did things differently. We did one sheet at a time. I gave her the upper and lowercase letters for the letters on that sheet. She could do the uppercase all by herself, so if you want a younger child to do this activity independently, you might want to just do uppercase letters. She needed help with the lowercase letters.

The way I helped her understand grouping the letters together even if they looked different is I told her the man on the page is the "daddy letter," the uppercase letter was the "mommy letter," and the lowercase letter was a "baby letter." This worked for her because she is obsessed with babies. It helped her grasp that the letters can go together even if they don't look the exact same.

I had her hold a letter up and tell me what letter it was, then match it. She could get all uppercase, and knew some lowercase, but didn't know them all. It was a great exercise in getting her to think about lowercase letters.

For younger toddlers, I would recommend doing just uppercase. For a pre-toddler or baby, you might hold the letter up and say what it is and then put it on the page or have your child put it on the page if possible.

18 comments:

Stephanie Rawlins said...

love the idea! i wasn't able to find the free downloads on the pre-kpages website. do you mind sharing A-F and the circles with letters?

Valerie Plowman said...

Sure--either post your email address here or email me at valplowman@gmail.com and I will email it to you!

Valerie Plowman said...

I have emailed everyone who requested it, so if you have requested it before now and have not gotten it, I didn't get the email.

Leslie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Activity Mom said...

Thank you for sharing this activity! I've included it in my 2012 Activity Advent Countdown. I've gotten a few emails wondering about A-F. Would you prefer each person emails you?

Thanks!
Nicole

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Could I have a copy of the lower case letters as well?

Thanks,
Nicole

Shelley Lovett said...

Hi ... this is material from my membership site earlychildhoodprintables.com. Please contact me regarding your post and distribution of my material.

Thank you ...

shelleylovett@charter.net

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jhazelton said...

I would love to have the A-F and the circles if you still have them available. I want to use this as a center for my preschool kiddos! Thank you so much for sharing your great ideas :)

jhazelton@knox.k12.in.us

Kara said...

Hi there! I love this idea! I am working on a gingerbread round up for the West Valley Moms Blog and would love to include one photo and a direct link back to you original blog post. Would that be okay? Thanks!
Kara
mineforthemaking@gmail.com

Tammy B said...

Hi, I would love the A-F cards and circles also. I couldn't find them for free on the other website. My email is tboschee@ualberta.ca. Thank you!!!

Tammy

the montalvan family said...

Hi I would love the card and circles A -F if still available. My email is mont041977@aol.com thanks so much
Adrienne

Jennifer Gillie said...

Hello, I am also interested in the matching circles. I also only have Upper Case letters G-Z. Curious where A-F was since I can't find it on the other website. Thank you! My email is mrs.jengillie@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the great ideas! I would love to have the A-F since I couldn't find it on the other site. Also would love the circles. Thanks, my email is smalanyaon@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Hi! DO you by Chance have letters A-F? Thank You! These are adorable!

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Unknown said...

Hi, I would love the A-F cards if you still have them available. My email is bch1993@sbcglobal.net. Thank you!!!

Unknown said...

Hello could you send me letter a-f and the letter circles if that is possible my email address is luckybongo@comcast.net thank you

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