These Kids Really Love Their Letters!

Confession: The alphabet unit is not one of my favorites of the year.

Hey, they can't all be my favorites, and it's not that I hate the alphabet unit, I just prefer other units over it.

Any lack of enthusiasm I may have had was not at all contagious though. My students were all about the alphabet this month.

The Z Was Zapped (Chris Van Allsburg) was a BIG hit. Then last week we read The Turn Around, Upside Down Alphabet Book (Lisa Campbell Ernst). I of course forgot my camera that day. Sure wish I had it with me, 'cause those kids were a hoot! The book takes each letter and makes suggestions of what it could look like if turned another direction. The kids ate that up! They were even throwing out their own suggestions.

Then I threw some large paper letters out for them to play with, and they were pretending they were all were all the things mentioned in the book... and beyond. I really liked them taking the letter "J" and pretending it was a snorkel breathing tube. They were having so much fun with it, they wanted to take the letters home.

This week they got their wish. We read The Hidden Alphabet (Laura Vaccaro Seeger), which they were at least equally amazed with. Then we hunted down the hidden letters in our room. And the best part was that they got to dress their letters up and take them home with them! They were thrilled!