ABC Manipulatives

I got this great idea from one of the veteran homeschool moms in our homeschool group. Kids love manipulatives. Some kids find them very useful for when they are learning, especially if they are tactile learners. Plus, they're just fun :)

I was at the local discount store and I came across some Christmas discount items. In one of the bins was a plastic bucket of 3D letters - glittered to boot! Perfect! We've been using them to practice our sounds, spelling words, and the like.

Today we used them a bit differently. I've been collecting small items in an old wipe box. I have little toy animals, a comb, dice, fake berries, play food, tiny play chicks, and all sorts of other miniature things. The girls each had to pick an item and match it with the letter that the word might start with. For example, Car = "C" Then, since Maddie is beyond that stage now, I spelled out a bunch of items (car, duck, pizza, deer, spoon, etc) and she had to read the word, match the item to the word and find a rhyming word. They really enjoyed that! Thanks, Kate, for the ideas!