Letter recognition for kindergarten
11 Easy Letter Recognition Centers for Kindergarten
Centers
As a kindergarten teacher, you eat, breathe, and sleep letters. Learning to recognize letters is one of the most pivotal skills students learn in kindergarten. To help you freshen up your literacy centers, read on for 11 easy letter recognition activities for kindergarten.
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Letter Recognition Activities for Kindergarten
Learning to recognize letters is the most basic literacy skill in which all other literacy and reading skills are built. Put simply, it’s super important for students!
It’s important to work letter recognition activities into your daily routine. However, doing the same activities and letter recognition centers over and over will lead to boredom for your students faster than you can say “school’s out!”
Beat the boredom and master those letters with these 11 letter recognition activities for kindergarten.
#1. Alphabet Tic-Tac-Toe
For this center activity, pair students up into partners. Give each pair a basic tic-tac-toe board or draw one on a whiteboard.
You can prep mini tic-tac-toe boards by folding a piece of card stock into fourths and creating a board on each fourth. Laminate and cut them apart to use time and again.
Each partner will be assigned a letter to mark their spaces. Each time they lay their magnetic letter or write it with dry-erase marker, they must say the letter name. Play continues until the first student gets 3 in a row to win.
You can also have students use the same letter, with one student being uppercase and the other student being lowercase.
#2. Letter Match
This letter recognition activity for kindergarten is a great letter recognition and team building center.
To play, mix up uppercase and lowercase letter tiles or letter cards and place them in a pile.
Have students work together in a small group to match the uppercase and lowercase letters together. To take it a step further, challenge students to place the uppercase and lowercase letter matches in order from A-Z.
#3. Hidden Letters
Hide magnetic letters in a tub of sensory materials such as cereal, rice, noodles, etc. Give students a pair of jumbo tweezers and have them take turns grabbing a hidden letter with the tweezers, identifying the letter, and saying the letter name aloud.
This letter recognition center is perfect for incorporating fine motor skills and sensory learning into the day.
#4. Heads Up
For this center, students will play with a partner. Each pair will need a whiteboard and dry-erase marker. The first student will write a letter on the whiteboard without showing their partner.
They’ll pass the whiteboard to their partner, without the partner looking at the letter.
The partner will hold the whiteboard up to their forehead, facing their partner.
The student that wrote the letter will give hints about the letter to their partner until the partner guesses the letter. Hints can be about the shape of the letter, whether it’s a vowel or consonant, if someone’s name begins with it, or a beginning sound word clue.
After the student has made 5 guesses or guessed correctly, the letter will be revealed and then the next student will choose the letter and give hints to play another round.
#5. Letter Toss
For this letter recognition activity for kindergarten, use a dry-erase cube to write letters on all sides. Students will take turns rolling the cube, saying the letter, and writing it on a whiteboard in both uppercase a lowercase. Play continues to the next student.
To focus on only one letter at a time, you can write the same letter in uppercase and lowercase on the cube and have students identify the letter and whether it is uppercase or lowercase before they write it.
You can also use color-coded letter cards and corresponding recording sheets like the ones found in this roll and color activity.
#6. Find the Letter
This easy letter recognition center will be a blast for your students and help them think on their feet. To play, spread magnetic letters or letter cards out on a table or on the floor.
Call out a letter and have students race to find it in the pile. The first student to find it gets to keep the letter. The student with the most letters at the end wins. You can also have students take turns finding the letters instead of racing to find them.
This would make a great small group game. Follow it up with an independent practice activity where students work on finding letters and reading left to right with individual find the letter activity pages.
#7. Magazine Hunt
Choose a few letters that you want your students to work on. Divide a large piece of chart paper into that number of sections and label the top of each section with a letter, written in both uppercase and lowercase.
Give one piece of chart paper to each small group of 4-5 students. Supply students with magazines, scissors, and glue. To practice, students will look through the magazines, cut out letters that match one of the sections on the chart paper, and glue them in the appropriate section.
To save yourself prep time, you can make one chart paper and have all students rotate to this letter recognition center to work together to fill it up. Next time you use the center, you can use a new chart paper with new letters.
#8. Sticker Letters
Write an uppercase and lowercase letter pair in large letters on a piece of white paper. Make copies for each student. Students will practice forming the letters by using small stickers to place on top of the letters.
This is great for fine motor practice as they practice peeling off each sticker and sticking it to the letter. If they finish early they can rainbow write the letter on the back of the page or draw pictures that start with that letter, working on beginning letter sounds.
#9. Clip and Match
To prepare this activity, write different sets of uppercase and lowercase letters on sentence strips. Write the letter 3 times on each strip. For example, one strip may have B, B, B and another may have b, b, b.
Mix up the sentence strips and provide students with clothespins. Students will work to find an uppercase and lowercase sentence strip that match and clothespin them together.
For extra fine motor practice, they can clip over top of each letter, using 3 clothespins per match and saying the letter each time they clip.
#10. Spoon Match Up
This easy, DIY letter recognition center requires nothing more than a set of white plastic spoons, a set of clear plastic spoons, and a permanent marker.
To prep, write one letter on the top of a white plastic spoon and the corresponding uppercase/lowercase letter on the bottom of a clear plastic spoon with a permanent marker.
Continue until all letters have been written on both sets of spoons.
You can prep letters A-Z and use them all or sort them into smaller groups of letters to focus on fewer letters at a time.
Mix up the spoons and have students find the matching white and clear spoons and put them together so they can see both letters and make a match.
#11. Click and Listen Boom Cards
This letter recognition center for kindergarten would be perfect for an independent center or technology center. These Click and Listen Letter Identification Boom Cards provide students with an interactive way to practice hearing the letter sound and choosing the corresponding letter.
There are 2 decks for letter identification and 2 decks for letter sound identification included, giving students ample opportunities to practice. These are self-checking, have audio directions and letter names or sounds depending on the deck, and require no prep.
I hope these 11 letter recognition center ideas have given you some inspiration to try something new with your students to practice learning letters.
If you would love even more letter recognition activities for kindergarten, check out my Endless Letters and Letter Sounds Bundle. This bundle is always growing and getting new activities added to it, so you’ll never run out of fun ways to practice!
Post Tags: #alphabet#centers#DIY centers#letter recognition#literacy centers
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10 Simple Letter Recognition Activities for Kindergarten
One thing I distinctly remember from when I was a Kindergartener, was playing with the alphabet magnets on a magnetic easel. When I was in Kindergarten, most of what I learned throughout the year was letters and their sounds through lots of letter recognition activities. These days, most Kindergarteners come in knowing all their letters and the majority of their sounds. This doesn't mean we don't have to worry about letter recognition! It's important to continually teach the letters and their sounds to start building their fluency and prepare them for the first steps of learning how to read.
Teachers are usually split on how to teach letter recognition and sounds in Kindergarten. Some prefer to focus on one letter per week, teach the sound, as well as focus on other phonics skills. Many curriculums are laid out this way. Other teachers prefer the “boot camp” style- teaching one letter per day for the first 26 days of school. It really depends on your school and class with how you teach letters. I prefer to do a week or two of just letter recognition, then three to four weeks of focusing on letter sounds, each day focusing on one to two sounds. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to teach letters and sounds, just as long as you spend time reviewing and practicing them. Today, I'm sharing 10 simple letter recognition activities for Kindergarten with you!
1. Pocket Chart Games
If you have a pocket chart and some alphabet flashcards, you're in luck! There are plenty of ways to practice naming letters with a pocket chart. You could play memory, where students have to match the uppercase to the lowercase letter.
You can hide an object behind a flashcard and have students try to find it, by saying the letter name of each card. Another idea is to use letter cards to spell the names of our classmates.
2. Play Dough Letters
Fine motor skills are SO important to continue to develop in Kindergarten. Playdough is undoubtedly my favorite way to add in a little fine motor practice plus it's fun! Have students roll out the play dough like a snake to make different letters. You can display the letter on the board, or use a playdough mat like this one found here: Phonics Play Dough Mats.
3. “I'm thinking of a letter…”
This guessing game is a fun way to practice the various attributes of a letter! Your students will try to guess what letter you are thinking of by giving them clues, and then letting them guess. For example, “I'm thinking of a letter that is a vowel. It looks the same both uppercase and lowercase. It does not have straight lines.” And you may have guessed I was thinking of the letter O!
4.
Alphabet SortUsing stamps, letter magnets, or even a pencil, have students sort letters by their different attributes, by vowels and consonants, or if it's in the students' name. You can grab this freebie here: Free Alphabet Sorting Mats.
5. Play a song
Did you know that songs help kids learn? Hearing that rhythm and rhyme helps skills stick in their brains longer. Think about how you get those songs stuck in your head, even from 10 years ago! You can find a whole playlist of songs to practice letters here.
6. Letter Crafts
This makes an adorable book that students can take home once they are finished! We did these letter crafts as part of our Fun Friday centers every week. At the beginning of the year, I did a lot of modeling and we did the first few together. After a few letters, they were able to do it just by looking at the picture sample.
7. Read a book
Reading is one of the best ways to add in some variety to your phonics lessons! Grab an alphabet book and have students go on a letter book hunt while you read.
Pause when you come to a letter and have the students shout it out.
Check out my post on books that teach letter recognition and sounds here.
8. Letter Hunt
Use what's already in your classroom to go on a letter hunt! Have students pick a letter card out of a basket and go “hunt” for that letter. They can find it on a poster, book cover, friend's name, anywhere! Once they find one, they stop where they're at until all friends have found a letter.
9. Write and Wipe
Give each of your students a whiteboard and dry erase marker. Call out a letter and have students write it on their board and hold it up to show you. You can quickly check and see how your students know each specific letter.
10. Shaving cream letters
Squirt a little bit of shaving cream on each student's desk and have them practice writing letters! You can call the letter out to write or write it on the board and have them copy it. Bonus: this makes your classroom smell amazing and cleans the desks!
More Letter Recognition Activities for Kindergarten
If you're looking for a simple, all in one guide to teaching Letter Recognition and Sounds, check out the Kindergarten Phonics Curriculum Unit 1: Letter Recognition and Sounds.
This includes a six-week unit overview, phonemic awareness warm-ups, detailed lesson plans, center activities like the play dough mat above, worksheets, and more!
What letter recognition activities for Kindergarten would you add to this list?
9 Skills Every Child Should Be Prepared For Before Entering Kindergarten — Inna Koshuba on vc.ru . Kindergarten gives children the opportunity to grow and develop through play and interaction.
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Photo: Ecovillage Nikolino Park in Krasnodar
At preschool age, children learn to strengthen their social and emotional development. Children learn to show respect and solve problems. Kindergarten provides children with an environment in which they can explore, gain self-esteem, play with peers, and develop self-confidence.
1. Recognize name
Your child's name will be everywhere in the kindergarten group - on boxes, folders, tables and much more.
Help him to know his name at a glance, say the letters in his name and write his name as best as possible.
2. Name the letters of the alphabet.
To be ready for kindergarten, your child must know at least half of the alphabet.
3. Determine the dominant hand
Is your child right or left handed? Hand dominance is determined in utero before the baby is born. But the precise, skillful use of one hand over the other may not be fully established until your child is 4-6 years old - around kindergarten. If your child's hand dominance is already clearly established, your kindergarten teacher will readily recognize this. If this is still unclear to you, be sure to let your child's caregiver know.
4. Know how to properly hold and use scissors
If you haven't given your child scissors yet, it's time to start. Pretty safe scissors with rounded ends are sold now.
5. Name and recognize colors
The child should be able to recognize and name the primary colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown and white.
Color recognition helps kids with one of the earliest basic math skills – sorting.
6. Count and recognize numbers up to 10
Most preschoolers learn to count, to recognize numbers up to 10. This skill is the easiest to teach, we have 10 fingers and toes. We count!
7. Make rhymes
Nursery rhymes have been the beginning of literacy for many generations. Recognizing words that rhyme is an important first step in preparing for kindergarten and reading. If nursery rhymes are not part of your family's repertoire, you can play a simple rhyming game. Say any word ("Cat") and ask the child to tell you a rhyming word ("Mouse") in response.
8. Play and share with peers
Kindergarten is not only preparation for studies, but also social development. To prepare for kindergarten, encourage your child to play and share with peers and siblings. Remind them, "Treat others the way you want to be treated." Schedule meetings with peers at home, in the park, or at the playground.
9. Basic hygiene and personal care
To prepare for kindergarten, your child will need to be able to use their own bathroom, including drying themselves and washing their hands. They are also expected to eat lunch and snacks, mostly on their own, including cleaning their seats and properly disposing of garbage.
Remember, when you start the school year in kindergarten, the teacher is a huge resource and partner in your child's education. Educators always welcome open communication and encourage you to share concerns, desires and personal preferences of both yours and your child.
It is interesting and useful about houses, cottages, everyday life, family in our Telegram channel - Nikolino Park cottage village in Krasnodar. Subscribe!
7 text recognition tools online and offline
December 16, 2020 Likbez Technologies
These sites and programs will help you extract the text content of images and papers to make it easier for you to work with it.
1. Office Lens
- Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows.
- Recognizes: camera shots.
- Saves: DOCX, PPTX, PDF.
This service from Microsoft turns your smartphone or PC camera into a free document scanner. With Office Lens, you can recognize text on any physical medium and save it in one of the "office" formats or as a PDF. The resulting text files are editable in Word, OneNote, and other Microsoft services integrated with Office Lens. Unfortunately, the program does not cope with the Russian language as well as with English.
Download
Price: Free
Download
Price: Free
Download
Price: Free
Adobe Scan also uses your smartphone's camera to scan paper documents, but only saves PDF copies.
The application is completely free. The results are conveniently exported to the Adobe Acrobat cross-platform service, which allows you to edit PDF files: highlight, underline and strikethrough words, search in text and add comments.
Download
Price: Free
Download
Price: Free
3. FineReader
- Platforms: Web, Android, iOS, Windows.
- Recognizes: JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG, PDF, camera shots.
- Saves: DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, ODT, TXT, RTF, PDF, PDF/A, PPTX, EPUB, FB*2.
FineReader is renowned for its high recognition accuracy. Alas, the free features of the tool are limited: after registration, you will be allowed to scan only 10 pages. But every month they will accrue another five pages as a bonus. Subscription cost 129euro allows you to scan up to 5,000 pages per year, and also gives you access to a desktop PDF editor.
Go to FineReader website →
4. Online OCR
- Platforms: web.
- Reads: JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, PCX, PDF.
- Saves: TXT, DOC, DOCX, XLSX, PDF.
Web service for text and table recognition. Without registration, Online OCR allows you to convert up to 15 documents per hour - for free. Once you create an account, you can scan 50 pages without time limits and unlock all output formats. For each additional page, the service asks from 0.8 cents: the more you buy, the lower the cost.
Go to Online OCR website →
5. img2txt
- Platforms: web.
- Recognizes: JPEG, PNG, PDF.
- Saves: PDF, TXT, DOCX, ODF.
Free online converter powered by ads. img2txt processes files quickly, but recognition accuracy is not always satisfactory. The service allows fewer errors if the text on the uploaded images is written in the same language, is located horizontally and is not interrupted by pictures.
Go to img2txt →
6. Microsoft OneNote
- Platforms: Windows, macOS.
- Recognizes: popular image formats.
- Saves: DOC, PDF.
The desktop version of the popular OneNote notebook also has a text recognition function that works with images loaded into notes. If you right-click on the document snapshot and select "Copy text from picture" from the menu that appears, then all text content will be in the clipboard. The program is available for free.
Download Microsoft OneNote →
7. Readiris 17
- Platforms: Windows, macOS.
- Recognizes: JPEG, PNG, PDF and others.
- Saves: PDF, TXT, PPTX, DOCX, XLSX and more.
Powerful professional PDF and OCR software. Converts documents in different languages with high accuracy, including Russian. But Readiris 17 costs accordingly - from 49up to 199 euros depending on the number of functions.
