Alphabet Time with My 3 Year Old: Learning Phonics, Writing and More!

Luke has been familiar with his ABC’s even before he turned 3 but that’s only thanks to the Alphabet Song! Haha. I’m usually not a very systematic teacher/mom/person (lol) but for the sake of being able to properly assess where he is, I decided it was time to take it one letter at a time!

This post is all about our alphabet journey where I will be sharing about the materials we use and helpful tips I learned along the way! Hope it helps you too.

GOALS:

• Learn how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters
• Master the phonic sounds of each letter
• Be familiar with how each letter is formed

MATERIALS WE USE:

These are the materials we use that have worked well for us. No way am I claiming that these are “the best” materials, of course! But sharing with you all because it might be helpful on your child’s own journey. More info about each after the list.

1. The Good and The Beautiful Pre-K Curriculum
2. Little Hands to Heaven Book (But we only use the “Fingerplay” sections)
3. Alphabet Wooden Puzzle Manipulative
4. Sandpaper Letter Boards in Uppercase and Lowercase
5. Alphabet-Themed books

NOTE: We are currently not sending Luke to any preschool but instead, opted to homeschool him for now. Since he’s only 3, enrolling him is not yet required. At the same time, using an actual curriculum is also not required when you homeschool this young but I personally find it helpful for me, just to keep track.

The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts & Literature Pre-K Curriculum

I discovered The Good and The Beautiful after 3 friends recommended it to me (There must be something about it right?) So, I checked the samples out and oh my, I fell in love with everything instantly!

I love the way that the whole curriculum for Language Arts & Literature was created. You tackle one letter per lesson but each letter is presented in a beautiful and fun way; nice pictures, simple tracing work, and more. He also learns how to identify the uppercase and lowercase form of each letter, learning how to write the letters, beginning letter sounds and phonics.

I initially thought I wouldn’t be a worksheet-kind-of-homeschooling-mom but Luke LOVES worksheets and considers them a reward (whaat?) so these work perfect for us. In fact, there are days when he asks to do more than one letter because he just can’t get enough. Haha.

And because we live so far away and shipping costs would be too high, we got the PDF Course Set and I just print the pages. And because our colored printer doesn’t work right now, I just print the worksheets in black and white and show Luke the beautiful colored photos on my desktop instead. It works that way too. Hehe.

See the sample for yourself to see what I mean!

Little Hands to Heaven

Just glossing over this because we don’t work on the entire lesson plans.

Little Hands to Heaven is a Bible-based curriculum for 2-5 year olds. A friend of mine lent me a copy of this book to check it out. Luke especially loved the Fingerplay sections, which are basically poems with hand gestures you can do. It’s pretty fun! Each poem focuses on a letter (alphabetical) and at the same time, a Bible story or character (surprisingly, also chronological!) Luke still can’t get over his favorite “A-A-Adam” poem.

I love the fact that it introduces Bible stories and characters to the little kids in a fun way while learning phonic sounds at the same time! But as mentioned, we don’t follow the entire curriculum because I’m already doing The Good and The Beautiful with Luke, so we only do the Fingerplay sections.

Alphabet Wooden Puzzle Manipulative

My personal favorite because it teaches logic and problem solving! Great especially for kinesthetic learners. Initially, I thought Luke wouldn’t like it because it’s a little complicated (you have to figure out what kind of shape you need and study how the holes will fit,) but he surprisingly enjoys the challenge!

At the start, it would take him a while to figure it out. But whenever he would figure out how to form a letter, he would give me a super wide and proud smile. Hehe. I always thought Luke was an auditory learner but lately I’m discovering he might be kinesthetic, which is why this material interests him.

(Got this from Super Toys Store, an online seller at Instagram)

Sandpaper Letter Boards in Uppercase and Lowercase

I got these because I figured these sandpaper letter boards are very versatile. You can do so many activities with it: spell, play matching games, use it for tracing and more! Right now, we use these boards as a guide whenever Luke does his tracing work. I also let him “trace” the letters using his fingers so he gets a feel of the proper strokes.

TIP: If you wanna do this DIY, you can! Just print big letters, cut them up in rectangles and laminate! I thought about doing this initially but decided that I didn’t wanna go through all the trouble so I bought the wooden ones instead! 😀

(Also got this from Super Toys Store, an online seller at Instagram)

Alphabet-Themed Books

We do read-alouds a lot in our home and so it’s inevitable that we have quite a number of ABC books in our shelves! These are some of our favorites and great to supplement and reinforce the alphabet lessons.

1. Big Thoughts for Little People: ABC’s to Help You Grow by Kenneth Taylor
2. Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book
3. AlphaBlock by Christopher Franceschelli
4. My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God’s Word in Little Hearts by Susan Hunt

See related post: Why I Decided to Curate Our Children’s Books

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And there you have it. These are the materials that I use with Luke as we learn about phonics, writing and the alphabet in general! There are a TON of other activities you can do (find great ideas on Pinterest!) Would love to hear what has worked well with your own kids!

Read more early learning / homeschooling posts here!