Hands On Alphabet

One of my goals this year has been to try to eliminate worksheets. One area it just seems unavoidable is in meeting the Common Core standard L.K.1a: Printing Letters. Here's how I've been doing it.

1. We get together in the circle area and say the letter formation poem, that I get from this great website. We do this while drawing the letter in the air with our fingers.

2. I model how to make the letter with a novel manipulative. Then they try.

3. Finally, they work on their letter either on a whiteboard or on a workpage. Manipulating the letter before writing it seems to make a huge difference!

We've started doing the same with sight words as well. Below, the kids are working on THE with playdough and LITTLE with shaving cream.

And if you'd like a complete list of the manipulatives I use, and the work pages I've created, go to my TpT page, where I have the entire unit posted: