Abc exercises for kids

Make Physical Fitness Fun With These Alphabet Exercises

ByHavalyn Updated onSeptember 16, 2020

Are you wondering how to incorporate physical fitness into your preschooler’s day? Try these great alphabet exercises with your child, and they will learn while they are moving their bodies. We love to make learning and moving fun here at Kids Activities Blog.

Make Physical Fitness Fun {Alphabet Exercises}

It is important for all kids to move in order to stay healthy and fit. I am also trying to make things fun for Rory, and of course incorporate learning in them. 

We have an ABC puzzle on our floor that we used for this activity, but you can use anything. You could just write the ABC’s on paper and put them all over the floor.

For this activity, we put the ABC’s all over our floor. We mixed them up, so that Rory would have to walk more from A to B. We started with A, and then continued with the letters until we got to Z. Each letter has a movement that we would act out when we got to that letter.

You can do any movement you would like, but here is a list of our actions.

A  – Act like a cat

B  – Bend at the knees

C  – Chair pose

D  – Dance

E  – Elephant steps

F – Fly like a bird

G  – Gallop

H – Hugs

I  – Itsy bitsy steps

J – Jump

K – Kick

L – Leg lifts

M – March

N – Noisy steps

O – Open and shut arms

P – Pop up

Q -Quiet hops

R – Runs

S -Side steps

T – Turns

U – Under mommy’s legs

V – Vacuum

W – Wiggles

X – X  jumping jacks

Y – Yoga (downward dog)

Z – Zig zag steps

We just went from letter to letter and had fun with it!

How do you provide physical fitness for your child? What alphabet exercises can you come up with? We’d love to hear your feedback. For more ideas for kids activities to promote exercise and moving, check out these posts:

• Bosu balls aren’t just for adults. This bosu ball game is a fantastic way to help keep your little one active.
• Is your child fussing while you’re trying to workout. We have the exercise solution!
• Not spending a lot of time outside? Here are 10 active things to do indoors.
• Check out these awesome active gifts that will keep your child moving!
• Learning doesn’t have to be sedentary anymore. Take a look at these 5 active learning techniques.
• Being inside can get boring quickly. Fix the boredom with these things for kids to do.
• Are you staying active? You’ll love these 5 strategies to keep you moving.
• Did you know people who ride electric bikes get more exercise than those who ride traditional bikes?
• How can you teach your child to ride a bike with the training wheels off?
• You can take classic board games and turn them into outside board games using chalk.
• Need some more activities to get kids moving?
• Make exercising exciting and unique with these super cool exercise dice for kids.
• Need to get your kids active and clean the house? Do it all at once by having the kids mop the floor with their socks!
• Make indoor exercise a blast with this fun indoor obstacle course.
• Have little kids? We have plenty of activities for babies too!

Havalyn

Havalyn is a stay at home mama with a beautiful girl with CFD (congenital femoral deficiency). She devotes her days to helping her grow and develop by doing crafts and activities together. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with family, anything artsy, working out, music, baking, and reading. Hava writes about her life at Rory Jane and Little Right Leg and tweets as @LittleRightLeg.

Alphabet Exercises That Get Kids Moving

Exercise for kids is so important on many levels. Use these alphabet exercises to help build skills, and get the kids moving with an alphabet theme. Add this alphabet for kids activity to your list of gross motor coordination activities.

Why Use these Alphabet Exercises?

In therapy, we look to help children build their gross motor skills, core strength and endurance, body awareness, motor planning, and self-regulation skills. It is recognized that regular exercise can help defend against childhood mental health and behavioral disorders, such as anxiety and depression.

The consistent engagement in physical activity promotes overall health and wellness and provides a more grounded mindset for daily living and participation in life activities.

These alphabet exercises were actually created as a resource in 2020, when many children were working remotely. With all of the time that children spent completing school work as part of teletherapy activities, or even their increased time engaging with electronics at home, they needed encouragement to exercise or simply participate in physical activity during the day.

However, there is even more of a need for these alphabet exercise even though most students are back to traditional learning environments. Students are on screens more than ever before. The symptoms of too much screen time is evident. Additionally, therapists are seeing more of a need to address self-regulation challenges in schools and in homes.

That’s where this movement-based alphabet for kids comes in as a support activity.

Research tells us that outdoor play is essential. However, even going outside to play or engage in motor skills is a challenge for some children!

Making exercise a fun playtime activity is the best way to help a child build skills while benefiting their health and wellness and keeping weight in check.  

Exercise can build confidence and self-esteem, helping a child to feel better about themselves and increasing their overall happiness.

Alphabet Exercises

One way to engage children in activity is with a structured therapy band exercise program, however, occupational therapy home programs can be creative and use out-of-the-box ideas like this ABC theme exercise activity.

For a printable PDF version of this alphabet exercise page, scroll to the bottom of this page and enter your email address.

These letter exercises are also available in an interactive Google slide deck where students can move parts of the slide as they complete each letter activity. Click here to access that ABC exercises slide deck.

Alphabet Gross Motor ACTIVITIES

Would you like a playful way to engage a child or children in therapy exercises or in a home exercise program?

How about trying this fun ABC’s of Exercise activity page? There are many ways to use these alphabet exercise letters in learning and occupational therapy activities guided by individual goals.

• Children can either spell words or even their names to engage in the physical activity which accompanies each letter.
• Use some homework spelling words and perform the exercises related to them! Wow…homework AND exercise!
• Another easier way to play is by placing either A through Z foam letters, Bananagrams, or Scrabble tiles into a bag or basket and then have the child pull one letter out at a  time and match it to the corresponding letter on the ABC’s of Exercise chart to perform the exercise listed.
• Work through the child’s name for an individualized exercise program.
• Add the letter gross motor activities to a letter of the week learning program.

Don’t have foam letters or board game letter tiles?  No worries, just grab some puzzle pieces, folded pieces of paper, beans or craft sticks and write the letters on them!

Toss any of these into a bag or basket and pick one…easy and cheap!  You can also incorporate some handwriting with this activity too by having them write each exercise letter or a word beginning with that letter after they complete the exercise.

The best part about this activity page is that it is open-ended so you (or they) get to determine how many to perform of each exercise and how many exercise letters to perform.

In addition to being open-ended, this activity page provides a wonderful opportunity for teaching students exercises which can later be used when the child is feeling heightened and needing some self-regulation intervention tools.

Use the activity sheet as an inclusion tool for a whole class activity, small group or individual therapy session, or even as a supplement to a motor pathway in the school building! Have the child do the activity that spells their name when using it as part of a motor pathway in school!

The following list are the exercises and their descriptions which are utilized in the ABC’s of Exercise resource:

Arm rolls – Have child lift arms out from their sides and rotate arms in small circular patterns, first forward and then backward.

Butterfly legs– Have child sit on the floor with legs flexed and bottom of feet touching. Then have them flap their legs up and down to resemble the wings of a butterfly.

Crab walk – Have child sit on the floor, lean back on their arms and lift their body up with their legs and arms to walk along the floor resembling the walk of a crab.

Duck walk – Have child squat down and walk on the floor while squatted resembling the walk of a duck. Add having them bend their arms up to make them look like duck wings.

Elephant trunk swing – Have child stand up and lean forward with arms extended and fingers linked together. Once this position is achieved, have child sway their arms left and right resembling an elephant’s trunk.

Frog hops – Have child squat down on the floor with their arms in front of them and have them leap forward as far as possible resembling a jumping frog. Do this repeatedly.

Giant tape lines – Place tape lines on the floor to work on jumping from line to line or complete giant jumps by attempting to jump as far as possible from a standing position.

High knees – Have child lift alternating knees up to hands for tapping and while marching around the room. Have them lift knees as high as possible.

Incline climb – Have child climb up a slide, long wedge or hillside or toss the couch cushion or even the bed mattress in the floor and make a ramp. If all else fails, just use the stairs!

 Jumping jacks – Have child start by standing with arms out to their sides and legs together then have them jump while spreading their legs and feet apart and arms up and over their head. Follow with bringing arms back to sides and legs and feet back together.

 Knee squats – Have child start with standing up and then squatting to floor and back up again, repeatedly.

 Lunges – Have child step forward with one leg and lower their hips until both knees are bent, then push back up to starting position. Alternate legs.

 Mega jumps – Have child jump from a higher level to the floor, either from a chair, sofa, steps, etc. or they could also simply try to jump as far as possible forward and then try to jump farther each time to beat their last distance.

 Neck rolls – Have child stand or sit to roll their neck and head in a circular pattern from left to right and from right to left.

Overhead stretches – Have child reach up overhead, link fingers together and stretch arms up as high as possible. Add standing on tiptoes to make it really high. 

Push-ups – Have child lie on the floor and push their body up with their hands and arms. If a regular push-up is too difficult, complete knee push-ups by simply weight bearing on flexed knees while completing push-ups rather than trying to weight bear on toes.

Quad stretches – Have child perform, sit to stands and stand to sits, while sitting in a chair. Do this repeatedly.

Run in place – Have child run in place for a specific amount of time such as while counting to 20.

Snake slither – Have child lie on their stomach and move their body forward trying to keep as much of their body in contact with the floor as possible, similar to an army crawl.

Toe touches – Have child stand and bend over to touch their toes with their fingers and back up to standing. Do this repeatedly.

Under/over laser maze – Create a laser maze with use of tape, string, or streamers in the hallway and have child go under and over to move through it. Or have them crawl under tables and over furniture to achieve under/over.

 Vertical wall taps – Have child stand beside a wall and jump to tap the wall attempting to beat their last height touched with each jump.

Windmills – Have child stand with arms and legs out to the sides. Have them bend over to touch right fingertips to left toes and back up to standing and then bend to touch left fingertips to right toes and back up to standing.

X-marks the spot exercise – Have child cross over legs and feet and cross over arms and hands while jumping to create X patterns with extremities. Or complete ‘X’ cross crawls to work on cross-lateral activity of extremities.

Yoga poses – Have child pick a yoga pose to complete, such as cat pose, cobra pose, or shark pose.

Zig-zag run – Use small obstacles to create a zig zag course or simply attempt to run a zig zag pattern.

With home learning, indoor activities, and social distancing upon us, this exercise activity page will help meet the needs of your child so they can get in their daily exercise while also releasing some extra “cooped up” energy!

FREE Alphabet Exercise PDF

Enter your email address below to access this free ABC PDF to add heavy work, core strength, movement, and gross motor skills with an alphabet theme. Use the printable alphabet exercise PDF as a poster for learning letters through movement.

Best of all this alphabet for kids activity supports learning through play!

Resources:

Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School. Editors: Harold W. Kohl, III and Heather D. Cook. Authors: Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment; Food and Nutrition Board; Institute of Medicine. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2013 Oct 30.

This post was written by contributor author, Regina Parsons-Allen.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT: ABC Grammar

Welcome to www.RazvitieRebenka.com.

You are in the "ABC-Grammar" section. In this section you will find all the articles that develop materials, cards, posters, DIY toys, puzzles, coloring books, logic puzzles and much more collected on this site for learning ABC and Grammar with your child.
All material for classes with your child, which you will find in this section, you can download absolutely FREE.
Everything that you will see in the "ABC-Grammar" section was created for use at home, in kindergartens and mini groups, at school in primary grades.

In this section you can find exclusive teaching materials for classes created by the site's author.
Please do not remove the site name from the educational material that you will download. If you use educational materials from the site www.RazvitieRebenka.com, please provide a link to this site.

1. How to teach a child the letters of the Russian language? An interesting way to help you teach your child the letters of the Russian language at home. We make cards together and play games that will help memorize the letters of the Russian alphabet in a playful way.
2. Do-it-yourself ABC Book For Children How can you make an ABC book with your own hands? There is a wonderful way to make educational books for your Child. To do this, you need a regular file folder.
3. Learning the vowels Task: Find, Count and Guess the color. You ask what does the count and color have to do with it? Everything is very simple. Logic tasks that will help you easily remember the vowels in the alphabet.
4. Video Lesson "Letters of the Alphabet" Wonderful educational cartoon for children.
5. Video Lesson "Singing the Russian alphabet" One of the best and easiest ways to learn the letters of the alphabet is to sing a song of letters. Try it, I assure you, your baby will appreciate this video.
6. We study the letter "A". Or what the letter "A" looks like A wonderful selection of educational material. Color the letter , trace it around, connect the dots and see what happens, find in the picture and count how many letters "A" you see.
7. Video Lesson "Learning to read" ABC for children - video lesson for children.
8. Letters of the Alphabet. Puzzle Cards Learning letters can be turned into an interesting game. Multi-colored cards with letters of the alphabet will help you. But these cards are not simple. These are puzzle cards. Cut out neatly small squares with the image of letters on the card and ask the child to choose the correct letter for each card.
9. My first Alphabet A poster depicting Russian letters.
10. How to teach a child to read in syllables? One of the fun ways to make a study guide at home. A cheerful and colorful train will help us.
11. Video Lesson "ABC in the Circus" A fun and entertaining video for kids that will tell your little one what letters are.
12. Alphabet Cards Letters of the alphabet in the form of separate cards that you can color yourself. Each card has a letter and an object or animal that starts with that letter. With the help of these cards, you can not only introduce the child to the letters of the alphabet, but also replenish the vocabulary with new words.
13. Video lesson "ABC for Children" Video lesson "My first ABC". Learning letters together. Developing video lesson for a child.
14. Learn to Read Three Letter Words An interesting and entertaining game for your children. If you are learning letters, then the game "Learn to read by playing" is suitable for you. If you are learning new words, then this game "Learn to read by playing" is for you. If you are learning how to make words from letters, then this game "Learning to read by playing" is for you. You need to print the cards, stick them on cardboard or thick paper. Cut out circles with letters.
15. Learn to Read Four Letter Words An interesting and entertaining game for your children. If you are learning letters, then the game "Learn to read by playing" is suitable for you. If you are learning new words, then this game "Learn to read by playing" is for you. If you are learning how to make words from letters, then this game "Learning to read by playing" is for you. You need to print the cards, stick them on cardboard or thick paper. Cut out circles with letters.
16. Letters of the Alphabet The material was collected to study the ABC together with the child. Here you will find interesting tasks for learning the Letters of the Alphabet, coloring pages and poems about letters. In tasks, you need to color the letter, color the pictures and connect them with a pencil with the letter. Try to write large and small printed letters. Read the words beginning with the letter syllable by syllable. Write in capital letters. Listen to the verses beginning with the letter and guess the Riddle. Letter A Letter O letter U letter I, Y Letters E, E Letters 9000 The letter H letter P letter B letter T letter D letter K letter G 018 letter in letter f letter L letter C letter Z letter h 9000 Letter S
17. Colored Alphabet Letter Cards Alphabet Letter Colored Cards for activities with children at home, in kindergartens and primary grades.
18. Russian Alphabet Color Cards Color cards with Russian alphabet letters. Each card with a letter has a picture starting with that letter. With the help of these cards, you can learn the letters of the Russian alphabet, as well as new words.
19. How to prepare your hand for writing? These tasks will help your child to prepare his hand for writing, to master the skills necessary for the correct writing of numbers, letters, observance of size, inclination, position on the line. A huge variety of tasks to prepare the hand for writing are aimed at developing fine motor skills and coordination of hand movements, imagination and logical thinking, and the formation of confident graphic skills. How to prepare your hand for writing? Part 1 How to prepare your hand for writing? Part 2
20. Lotto for Children. Learning Letters Playing Lotto made by hand. In order to make Lotto for children at home, we will need: - white sheets of paper - stickers with letters - cards with letters of the alphabet - circles cut out of colored paper This game can be played by 2 or more people at the same time.
21. Writing and literacy training If your child knows letters but cannot read yet, I offer you interesting tasks that will teach your child to read words. In this workbook, your child will learn to read monosyllabic words that stand for certain things.
22. Color double-sided cards with Letters of the Alphabet Color double-sided Cards with the image of Letters and Pictures denoting words starting with this letter. Colorful cards with letters. The cards show pictures - photos of household items, food, animals, birds, furniture, etc.
23. Syllables. Making words from syllables Download free cards with letters and syllables. Syllables. Making words from syllables. Total 20 cards. Letters and syllables for children. Cut the large cards into individual small cards. And a wonderful material for teaching reading is ready. How to teach a child to read by syllables? This question interests all parents.
24. Learning to read while playing. Pets and Birds If you are learning letters, learning to build words from letters, learning new words, you are introducing your child to the names of pets and birds, then this game "Learning to read while playing. Learning Pets and Birds" is for you.
ear to determine where in a word this or that letter is located: at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.

35. Cards SYLABLES (not colored) Total cards: 21. Letters and syllables for children. Non-colored syllables 1 Non-colored syllables 2
36. Cards Read Combination of Words Download free cards to practice with your child. Cards from the series "We read combinations of words." We teach literacy - a set of cards with pictures. We print the cards on a color printer and cut the cards neatly in the middle. The child must collect the picture, the older child can also read the phrase.
37. Magic cells and dots Download exciting developmental tasks in the recipe Magic cells and dots. We develop the child and prepare for school. Copy. Part 1 Copy. Part 2

38. Collect the Word from the Picture and Letters. Didactic Game Cards collect the word and the picture. Download flashcards for free. Before starting the game, cut the cards along the lines, the puzzle is ready. The game will help the child learn the letters of the alphabet and teach how to make words from the letters.
39. Sound Model of the Word Phonetics is a branch of the science of language that studies the sounds of a language, stress, syllable. The sounds that a person makes are what we call speech sounds. Download flashcards to make words.
40. Flashcards - Which Letter the Word Begins with To form the skills of sound-letter analysis, use these didactic aids. You can download these cards for free and use them for studying at home, in kindergarten or in elementary grades.
41. Clothespin Educational Games Educational toys that can be made at home. For these games, we need ordinary clothespins.

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Learning the alphabet: methods, exercises and games for children

The alphabet is the foundation of reading. Therefore, before you start reading and writing, teach your children the letters.

Children can start learning to read as early as preschool age. Parents and teachers need to teach the child to pronounce sounds correctly in their native language. These are important prerequisites for learning letters and learning to read successfully. The educational process of preschool children is based on visual, acoustic and tactile exercises. The use of various channels of perception in the educational process increases its effectiveness and stimulates long-term memorization of letters.

Learning the alphabet: introducing the child to the alphabet.

To master reading, a child must learn and recognize not only the graphic form of letters, but also be able to match them with their corresponding sounds. This means that the child must be able to write letters and pronounce them. When the child learns to correctly pronounce all the sounds in his native language and distinguish letters by visual form, go directly to reading. As a rule, at the age of 5-6 years, most children no longer experience difficulties in this.

See also: Reading and bilingualism. Bilingualism in children

From the age of 5 to 6, children begin to understand that there is a lot of information encoded in language using letters. Thus, they are interested in learning to read by then, as they are naturally curious.

Of course, babies can learn and memorize individual letters quite early. However, their interest, mostly spontaneous, is directed to individual words and letters. Here it is important to gently motivate the child by encouraging him to learn through games and a comfortable environment. However, too much pressure can lead to stress, causing little ones to lose any motivation to learn letters.

Alphabet Learning Games

The first rule of learning the alphabet: learn the letters one by one!

Don't forget, each letter is made up of visually similar elements. If you try to teach a child several letters at a time, he may become confused. Learn the letters one by one. One lesson - one letter.

Second rule of learning the alphabet: take your time!

Give your child enough time for each letter. Plan 1-2 lessons for each new letter. Organize the lesson in a form that is interesting for the child with the help of games.

Tactile method: from studying letters to reading

The child sees something abstract in a letter. Chains of associations will help in learning letters. Associating each letter with something specific or familiar helps the child fix it in his memory.

Memorize what a letter looks like and develop fine motor skills.

We will need: plasticine (should be elastic), modeling board and a disposable plastic knife.

Together with your child, roll out 8 approximately identical sausages from plasticine. 2 - divide in half, 2 - divide into 3 parts. From the remaining 4, make rings by blinding their edges and cut 2 of them in half, creating semicircles. Thus, you should get a set of elements to compose any letters of the alphabet. Show the child a couple of examples and ask them to repeat, collecting previously passed letters.

Let's memorize letters, learn how to make letters from sticks, learn how to transform letters.

We need: a set of counting sticks. If not, you can replace with matches or toothpicks.

The easiest way is to lay out letters from sticks according to a pattern or without a pattern (according to the idea). When the child learns to lay out all the letters, you can complicate the task by laying out objects familiar to the child from them, and then ask them to change them, for example, make a figure resembling a door out of sticks, and then ask the child to remove 2 sticks to make the letter P.

Memorize letters and develop fine motor skills

We will need: sandpaper, velvet paper, scissors.

Cut out letters from sandpaper or velvet paper. The child will have to close his eyes to identify the letter by touch.

Memorize letters, develop fine motor skills

We will need: a bright dish tray, semolina

Pour sand or semolina in a thin layer on the tray. Set an example for your child, show how to write letters on the croup with a finger or a stick. Ask him to write next to the letter, the same as you wrote, to write a letter more or less than yours, to add an unfinished letter, or to erase the extra detail of the "wrong" letter. Children will like this game, just shake the tray a little, and the mistake or inaccuracy made disappears!

Memorize letters and train attention

We will need: cardboard, pencil and scissors

Prepare identical cards cards, 2 pieces for each letter. Write 1 letter on each card. Write the letters in mirror image and correctly. Lay out cards with the same letter in front of the child and offer to choose the correct one.

Train memory

We will need: scissors, cardboard and a pencil

The game "Memory Test" will challenge even older children. Write each capital letter on one card and lowercase letter on the other card. Turn over all the cards and place them on the table. Ask your child to match uppercase and lowercase letters. You can complicate and add a dictionary element. Have the children match the letter of the alphabet with the picture that starts with that letter.

Memory training

We will need: a bag of beans or other bulk material, a tablecloth or a large piece of paper.

If you want to warm up a little while you study the letters, play a game of Beanbag. Write the alphabet randomly on a large piece of paper. Give the children a bean bag and ask them to put it on paper. The child must name a word that begins with the letter on which the bag fell. If a student is stuck, help him.

Ask the child to check the chosen letter with letters from the alphabet. Be sure to ask the name of the letter. The exercise will help children learn to distinguish visually similar letters and avoid mistakes when writing them in the future.

Drawing, coloring, cutting letters out of paper and gluing them together develop fine motor skills in children.

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