Friday Focus : Creating a Literary Home, Part 2

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Last week Cissy talked about books and gave some great suggestions on how we can create a more literate home by implementing books and a love for reading. Today I would like to focus on letters and how important it can be to expose them not only to our older children but especially to our younger ones. PBS suggests providing a variety of types of letters that children can move around and rearrange. Here are a few ways my child is becoming more familiar with his letters.
1) Foam bath letters. This is his main bath toy. He loves to stick them on the side of the tub and rearrange them. Although, he is too young to know the names of the letters I think it's a good idea to spell his name out or show him which letter his name starts with.
2) Alphabet puzzles. Puzzles require a certain amount of concentration. As your child gets better at identifying the puzzle piece with it's place he/she will ultimately becoming more familiar with the characteristics of each letter.
3) Alphabet cookie cutters. I occasionally will pull out the cookie cutter and let my little man make a mess of them. I think at his age he would love it if I pulled out the play do and let him cut some letter shapes out.

These are only a few ideas of how you can expose letters in your home and in different ways. Others include: magnets, blocks, stickers, songs, educational videos. You may also want to consider creating an specific area in your home for writing where there is easy access to paper and pencil, crayons ect. This is a great way to promote learning.