Little Letters consists of 26 colorful wooden lower-case letters which
snugly fit into an equally colorful wooden jigsaw picture, beginning with
the same letter. Only the correct letter will fit into its corresponding
picture. Children are naturally curious to see how many letters they can
find the correct illustration for.
Set-up
The teacher/parent takes the letters and illustrations out of the
wooden box and lays them out on the table, all mixed up, with the letters
and illustrations face-up.
Method of Play
The students sit around the table or on the floor. When the
teacher says "Go!", the students try to match/assemble as many letters and
corresponding illustrations as they can. When all have been assembled, the
teacher asks the students to put their sets (letter and illustration) into
ABC order.
Then the teacher asks for the A-set. The student with the A-set hands it
to the teacher and says, "A-apple," and the teacher lines it up facing the
students. The teacher then asks for the B-set and the student with the
B-set hands it to the teacher and says, "B-book." The teacher then places
the B-set below the A-set. The teacher then asks for the C-set and it
continues as such until all the Little Letter sets have been lined up
vertically, with the A-set on the top and the Z-set on the bottom.
The teacher and the students can then say in unison all the letters, initial
letter sounds and the corresponding words. At the end the teacher can
select one set she/he especially likes. For example, "I like dogs." Next, the
student to the left selects another set and says, "I like..." This
continues until all the students have selected a set they like.
At the conclusion, the students take one set at a time and place the set in
the box saying the letter and the word. All the sets fit snugly into the
Little Letters wooden box. This is always a fun challenge because they
have to be assembled a certain way to fit in perfectly.
The vocabulary learned via Little Letters is as follows:
|
a-apple
b-ball
c-cat
d-dog
|
e-elephant
f-fish
g-gorilla
h-hammer
|
i-insect
j-jellyfish
k-kite
l-lion
|
m-monkey
n-newspaper
o-octopus
p-piano
|
q-queen
r-rabbit
s-strawberry
t-tiger
u-umbrella
|
v-violin
w-whale
x-x-ray
y-yo-yo
z-zebra
|
Little Letters is a good hands-on activity which enables children to "touch"
English through their eyes and fingertips.
Helene Jarmol Uchida
Helene Jarmol Uchida is a veteran teacher with teaching, curriculum
development and teacher training experience in the U.S., Greece and Japan.
She is the director of the Fukuoka-based
Little America English Schools
and lectures at Fukuoka Kyoiku Daigaku. She holds the LATEM seminars every year
in cities throughout Japan and is also the author of 'The Challenge Book',
an interactive English book and CD especially created for Japanese elementary school students.
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