Activity #1: Letter Collages
Letter collages are a great way to practice letter recognition! Focusing on one
specific letter and creating something special will help them recognize and
remember the letter.
Activity #2: Do-A-Dot Letter Search
Who doesn’t love mess-free art?! Do-A-Dot paint markers pretty mess-free as
long as your little one doesn’t wipe them all over their hand, wishful thinking,
right?!
Activity #3: Letter A Search and Match
2. Set-up: Draw an upper and lower case letter on cardstock paper. Tape it up
on the wall! On post-it’s, write a bunch of upper and lower case letters, then
hide them around your house or classroom.
3. Activity: Have your kids search for the post-it notes! Once they find one, have
them place it on the matching letter they see on the paper. Once all of them are
found, hide them again and repeat!
Activity #4: Alligator Craft and Feed
2. Set-up: Cut a small strip of green cardstock paper and two small strips of
white paper. Hot glue the small strip of green cardstock on top of the clothespin.
The white strips should be in a zig-zag pattern to look like teeth. Glue those onto
the sides of the clothespin. Then glue the googly eyes on top! I added some red
paint on to be the tongue.
3. Activity: Use the alligator craft to do an engaging activity to focus on the
letter A! The alligator only wants to eat the letter A. Use letter toys and have the
kids pick out a letter. They will use the alligator to eat only the letter A’s!
Activity #5: Letter Fill
Letter fill activities are quickly becoming one of my favorite activities to do with
the kids.
Activity #6: Salt Painting
Activity #7: Secret Letters
2. Set-up: On a white piece of cardstock, use a white crayon to write the letter A
all over the paper. You can do upper and lower case or just focus on one.
3. Activity: Your kiddo will use watercolors to paint all over the paper. They will
see the letters start to pop up! If you mixed upper and lower case letters, make
sure to ask them which kind they found.
When you are all done, ask them how many they found! Also, you can talk about
the colors that they used for color recognition.
Activity #8: Beginning Sounds
3. Activity: Go through each of the objects or animals that are inside the letter A.
Say the name of each thing and make each object’s beginning sound before
saying the whole word. This will help your little one understand the starting
sound of each picture they see.
They will color each thing that starts with the letter A!
I have beginning sound sheets for each letter of the alphabet! Create a booklet
to go over each of the sounds that the letters make. This will make for a great
resource to use repeatedly.
Activity #9: Alphabet Apple Tree
Matching
Activity #10: Ripped Letter Craft
Recognizing how sounds are the same, and how they’re different,
is referred to as sound discrimination. Hearing the first sound in
words is one aspect of sound discrimination, and it’s an important
phonemic awareness skill. It helps children to pay attention to the
sounds they hear, and it aids them in learning letter sounds down
the road.
Below, I share a variety of beginning sound discrimination ideas
for young children. Some are purely oral language activities,
focusing only on the sounds in spoken words.
Others are beginning sounds activities that incorporate
letters. While these are inherently phonics-based
activities, more research has come out indicating that pairing
letters with phonemic awareness activities is beneficial. It is
important to remember that language development, learning
to read, and learning to write include a multitude of skills that
interweave to create a literate person.
How to Teaching Beginning Sounds
Before I jump into the beginning sounds activities, I wanted to talk
about HOW to teach initial sounds. Because they do need to be
taught. While kids can pick up a lot from being read to, carrying
on conversations, and observing those around them, explicit
literacy instruction (at all levels) is very important.
Beginning Sounds Activities
Now let’s get into the initial sound ideas! As I mentioned earlier,
some of these will be solely focused on oral language while
others will bring in the alphabet. I separated things into categories
for you. That way, you can find the activities that best meet the
needs of your individual students.
Picture-Only Beginning Sounds Activities
First up are activities that are 100% phonemic awareness. Click
on the links below to read more about each of the ideas and, in
some cases, grab the free printables.
The St. Patrick’s Day beginning sounds printable is the
beginning of a series focused on initial sound games for
preschoolers. I’ll be adding more to the series throughout the
year, so do check back!
The Measured Mom has a set of sound clip cards ready for your
kids. You can use them with clothespins or math manipulatives.
Grab your own set of printable beginning sounds bingo cards from
Growing Book by Book.
You’ll find a fun initial sounds sorting game over on Pre-K Pages.
I love that this activity uses simple materials you might already
have.
Play This Reading Mama’s letter sounds tic tac toe with your
students! What a unique way to practice matching beginning
sounds.
Make a beginning sounds book based on family or classroom
members like Growing Book by Book. Then be sure to read it over
and over again once it’s done!
Super Simple Initial Sounds Activities
I also want to share some beginning sounds activities that you
can easily weave into your day. These are fast and easy and
don’t require much prep.
Incorporate the initials sounds into transitions. “Line up if your
name starts with /m/.”
Play a guessing game, “I’m thinking of a name that begins with
/s/.” Or, “I spy something that starts with /d/.”
Challenge the children to a beginning sounds scavenger hunt
based on their own names. You might need to double-check
there’s something available for everyone beforehand.
Practice gross motor skills with a beginning sounds bean bag
toss. Place a few images on the floor. Kids toss a bean bag at the
image that starts with a sound you say.
Use children’s pictures, real photos of common items, and/or
store-bought picture cards for picture sorts.
Make up a song! Here’s an easy one, to the tune of “Do You
Know the Muffin Man”
Do you know what starts with /m/,
Starts with /m/,
Starts with /m/?
Do you know what starts with /m/?
Let’s say a word!
Tie the initial sounds into what you’re learning about (butterflies,
for example). Say two words. If the words have the same
beginning sounds, kids can flap
their “wings” like butterflies.
Make a “feed the monster” game by cutting a hole in a shoebox
top. You can even go all out and decorate it like a monster. Kids
can only feed the monster pictures of things that start your chosen
sound.
Play a listen and clap game. Kids clap if you say two words that
start the same. Otherwise, they don’t clap.
Challenge the children to a “what’s different?” game. Place a few
pictures or objects out. The kids have to determine which one
doesn’t start the same as the others.
Letter-Sound Correspondence Activities
Now let’s talk about beginning sounds activities that incorporate
letters. You can definitely tweak these ideas and remove the
letters if that’s what you prefer!
Use Fantastic Fun and Learning’s free printable to go on a
dinosaur beginning sounds scavenger hunt. Little paleontologists
will get a kick out of this one.
Bring out the play dough for Modern Preschool’s identify and
stamp activity. Perfect for your collection of cookie cutters.
Your little builders will have a blast hammering beginning
sounds with ABCs of Literacy. Definitely add this to your next
construction theme.
Growing Book by Book’s beginning sound pancakes would be fun
in the dramatic play center. Everyone can have a pancake that
starts with the same sound as their name!
Or make a set of beginning sounds sticks like Pre-K Pages. Lots
of fine motor practice to be head here, too.
Add in some tactile learning with Stay at Home Educator’s initial
sound object matching.
Materials for Your Initial Sound Learning
Now that you have so many ideas for your own beginning sounds
activities, let’s chat materials. I love that you can use what you
have on-hand, or grab a free printable, for many of the activities
shared here. I’m a big fan of using what I’ve got!
But if you want to expand on the items you use for teaching initial
sounds, I’ve got some ideas for you (I may get commissions for
purchases made through links in this post):
Interactive alphabet sounds posters and books
Letter picture games
Alphabet and sound magnets
Letter sound games
Language miniature objects
