Teaching the Alphabet: "The Alpha Mat"

Hello everyone! I am excited to share with you the winning idea from our Idea Contest from years back!  It's called "The Alpha Mat," and it is used to teach the letters and sounds.  I hope you enjoy this great idea.




You can find out how to make the Alpha Mat by watching Diane's great video below, which explains it very well!  Here are links to where you can purchase the supplies for the Alpha Mat:

1. Clear vinyl envelopes from Avery that can be found on Amazon at this link.
2. A large vinyl tablecloth with cloth backing.
3. The large alphabet cards from the HeidiSongs Songbook, Flashcards, & Bingo to support Letters and Sounds. (Printed on colored cardstock)

The basic idea is that you hot glue the clear plastic sleeves down onto the tablecloth, making sure that they do not fuse themselves shut in the process!  (Watch the video below for tips on how to do this and also to see how the mat can be used!)  The pockets have to remain open so that you can change the cards in the pockets in and out.  This increases the diversity of the learning tool so that you can use it to practice many different things.

Below is the letter I received from our contest winner Diane! I will put our idea contest submissions in italics and my thoughts in regular type. Enjoy!

**********



Hi Heidi,
I just want to thank you so much for your wonderful curriculum. For the last year and half, my 5 yr old son has really been struggling to learn his alphabet and letter sounds. As a former first grade teacher, I was baffled. I tried everything I knew, and still could not seem to help my son. I finally googled how to teach the alphabet to a struggling learner and came across your website. I pulled up a couple of videos on YouTube and was hooked. I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. What happened over the next month was nothing short of amazing. I saw my son go from being lost and confused to feeling confident and having fun while learning.  

The large flashcards seemed to help my son a lot. Since he was having so much success with the larger flashcards, I tried to think of other fun ways that I could incorporate them into our learning. I came up with the Alpha Mat. We play lots of games with the Alpha Mat and hope to incorporate a lot more as we get more curriculum. Here are some of the games that we play and how to play.




1. Letter Hunt: The teacher calls out a letter and has a student find the letter on the mat and step on it. Then, the child sings the jingle and does the movements for that letter. The game can be played with the whole class or with just 1 or 2 students.

2. Upper/lowercase Match-Up: I do this activity 2 different ways. For the first way, I insert all uppercase flash cards into the Alpha Mat and have the kids lay the matching lower case letters that I've printed off from the Bingo game, on top to the correct letter. The other way is done in reverse with lowercase letters in the mat and uppercase letter are placed on top.

3. Beginning Sound Match: To play this game, either fill the mat with upper or lowercase flashcards. Then, have kids place the matching beginning sound picture to it's corresponding letter.

4. Spell- It: The last game that we play involves spelling CVC (Consonant-vowel-consonant) words. I shout out a word and my son steps on those letters to spell it out. If it's not too far of a stretch, I challenge him to not step on any other letters while spelling the word. He really likes this added rule.

5. Many Others- There are lots of other ways to use this mat since you can easily interchange the inserts. You could use it for sight words, shapes, colors, numbers, etc.

I'm so glad I found HeidiSongs. Thank you again!

**********


I hope you liked Diane's idea and try it out on your own! Enjoy!

-Heidi


----------------------------------
Follow me! Did you enjoy this post? Do me a favor and share it with your friends! And follow this blog by signing up for my email updates here, or follow on Bloglovin', or follow me on TPT! I'm also on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube, too! Don't forget to sign up for our email newsletter for special deals and promo codes that you won't find out about anywhere else.

Popular posts from this blog

How to Help Children That Have a Hard Time Learning the Alphabet

Image
Is your child (or student) having a hard time learning the alphabet?  Are those letters just not "sticking?" Does your child seem to know a letter one day, and then forgets it the next day- or even just a few minutes later? In this post, I will share my most recently developed techniques for helping kids learn and remember the alphabet. Check Vision- Thoroughly! During the past 30 years as a teacher, I have tried many things for all of the different types of learners that I’ve had. One thing that I would highly suggest is that you have your child's eyes checked, just in case you have not yet done that. I know that most schools have their school nurses do this, but I would suggest that a nurse is really not an optometrist, nor is he/she an ophthalmologist. I wrote about one little guy with vision issues in my post, Tips for Teaching the Alphabet to Struggling Learners . In that post, I shared that I had been teaching one child that had had such a difficul
Read more

Teaching Second Graders to Write a Biography Report (Free Sample!)

Image
This year, I found out that the all of the second graders at my school would need to read a BIOGRAPHY of a famous person and then write a report on it!  So I created an Easy Biography Graphic Organizer and Book Report Lapbook for them!  It turned out to be a GREAT way to introduce them to writing a first biography! So while my first graders were writing their insect reports (see last week's post on that!) I needed to have my second graders working on their biographies. So what is a combination class teacher to do?  The biography reports were similar in format to the insect lapbook so that I could try to work with both groups at the same time.  Luckily, I was able to introduce the concept of the biographies and do a practice one with the second graders alone one day when all of the first graders left on an all day field trip.  Thank goodness! Basically, I think that the procedure I did actually worked out pretty well, and their reports came out very nicely!  In a sense,
Read more

Phonics Coloring Worksheets for Word Families! (Freebies!)

Image
Introducing our new Phonics Coloring Worksheets for Word Families, which give kids practice finding & reading words with common phonics spelling rules, & a chance to color creatively, too!  They also give children practice reading and contrasting words from two different word families, so this is really great practice in sounding out words. As children find and color the pictures according to the words that are written inside of them, they get valuable practice thinking of reading words in terms of word families and phonics spelling patterns. The coloring makes it fun, too!  I think that these worksheets are the PERFECT addition for "morning work" in phonics, if I do say so myself!   And we have a couple of freebies for you to try out yourself, if you like!  Scroll all the way down the bottom to find them!  Otherwise, click here to purchase them for just $5 per volume!   Here's a link to Volume 1 , and here's a link to Volume 2 . All of the
Read more

Teaching Phoneme Segmentation: Separating Sounds in Words (Freebies!)

Image
Teaching children to pick out all of the phonemes (or sounds) in a given word can be tricky!  This requires good listening skills and well developed phonemic awareness in general.  For some children, mastering phoneme segmentation can seem just about impossible!  Here are some teaching tips that have worked for me in the past. *  The best advice I can give is to practice segmenting words with a designated MOTION for a short time every single day with your whole class.  Even just one or two minutes per day will help! Look for suggested motions on this post. There is also a downloadable list of words to use, plus a homework sheet that you can download here. Here is where you can get another  word list for practicing words with two, three, and four phonemes. And here is another post with lists of words with four, five, or six phonemes. *  Give kids beads to slide down a pipe cleaner as they segment the word.  I made these "Segmentation Sliders" out of p
Read more

Getting Control of a Very Difficult Class: TAKE TWO

Image
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tomorrow, and be fine with it?  This is a repost of a piece that I wrote several years ago when I was teaching Kindergarten.  I'm now in second grade, and finding that I have many of the same problems!  Since I actually went back and read my own post again, I thought I would post it here for you again, too, with a few of my updated comments inserted in italics.  Hope it's helpful! This is the original post. ********** This year, I have one of the most challenging classes I have ever had. I am still working on training them to do what I want them to do, but I know that in the end, I will win! Meanwhile, we are spending a LOT of time on classroom management, modeling routines and procedures often. Here is a list of some classroom management tips and techniques that I have used successfully in Kindergarten, but I think that they would prob
Read more

A Twist on the Headband Game!

Image
Here’s a fun, new, twist on the classic Headband Game that makes it reusable and adaptable to any subject and any level!  AND it gets the kids up and moving as they learn, so that’s an even greater bonus!!!!  This awesome idea was suggested by a participant in one of my workshops when I presented the Sight Word Headband Game and wondered aloud how to make this adaptable to kids in higher grades that learn their new words much more quickly.  So I tried it out myself, and voilá!  It worked out great!  My own class has done this now a few times and they LOVE it! So here is how it works; I’ll remind you of the my original version first.  With the original  Sight Word Headband Game , I wrote a word on a strip of paper and formed it into a headband.  The kids all put one on, and then walked around the room and wrote the words that they found on their friends’ heads next to their friends’ names on a sheet of paper. Now with this second “twist” on this “Advanced” Headband G
Read more

Tips for Using the Michael Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Book

Image
Here are my best tips, hints, and advice for teaching phonemic awareness with the Michael Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum , which is an amazing resource for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and primary teachers.  Once you know how to use it, it takes NO PREP TIME whatsoever, and the payoffs are HUGE!  However, until you develop a routine for using it that keeps your class engaged, it can be difficult to implement.  In this post, I will show you how I have made this curriculum work well for me, how to make the lessons go smoothly, and show you a video of my Transitional Kindergarten (TK) class doing the daily exercises. If you are not familiar with the Michael Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum , allow me to introduce you to it!  The book is compact and easy to use, and each daily practice session can take your class through every single phonemic awareness skill that they will need- all in just about ten to fifteen minutes! I have found it absolutely INVALUABLE in helping my clas
Read more

An EASY Critical Thinking Game for K/1 Kids!

Image
Today I'm going to tell you about a fun and EASY game to help boost critical thinking skills in Kindergarten or First Graders!  I call it The Critical Thinking Comparison Game, because in it, the kids are simply comparing one thing to another and telling what they think are the similarities and differences between two objects.  Believe it or not, my first graders LOVE this game and often ask me if we can play it again!  I think they like it because the game makes them feel successful and "smart."  I have also played it with Kindergartners, and they enjoyed it, too! The Critical Thinking Comparison Game is really very easy to play!  All you need is a few questions like the ones below, and something for the children to color, just to keep them busy while they wait for a turn to talk.   ( I also used my Critical Thinking Comparison Cards as a visual aid, but you can certainly play it without them! ) Here is the type of question that I ask in this game: How
Read more

Instant Online Curriculum with HeidiSongs Pacing Guide/Curriculum Map and Internet Video!

Image
Hello everyone!  Today, I am going to tell you about our Instant Online Curriculum for Kindergarten, which includes a FREE Pacing Guide/Curriculum Map with links to printable resources, and corresponds to a collection of internet videos that we are streaming on Uscreen!  This video collection has ALL of the HeidiSongs videos that you should need for each of the 38 weeks of the school year, all compiled by MONTH. This has been the result of many long hours (several months, in fact!) of work by my tireless husband, Greg, and it is BRAND NEW as of this week!  Given our current circumstances with the "Shelter in Place" guidelines regarding Covid-19, I am hoping that this resource will help you out! First: What is it? The Kindergarten Pacing Guide/Curriculum Map collection of internet videos is a compilation of our videos streaming online on our partner site, Uscreen!  Each monthly collection includes ALL of the videos that I recommend that a teacher or parent use per mon
Read more

Help! My Child Keeps Failing AR Tests!

Image
Hello!  Today I would like to tell you a little bit about how you can help kids improve their reading comprehension in general, and do better on AR (Accelerated Reader) quizzes if they have to take them!  If you're are not familiar with Accelerated Reader, AR (for short) is an online reading comprehension quiz program that many schools use to motivate children to read more, with the goal of at least 85% comprehension as an average for every book that is read.  If your child or several children in your class continually read AR books but fail these quizzes, what can you do to help?  I am hoping to give some suggestions that could work both at home and at school.  And teachers, there is a downloadable PDF copy of the "10 Great Ways to Boost Reading Comprehension" for AR Tests that you can send home with your students at the end of this post.  Thanks! Standard practice for AR is that children are only allowed to read AR books that they can successfully understan
Read more