Skip to my Letters!

Supplies:

Colored Construction Paper
Marker
Laminator & Laminating Pouches (optional)


To create this game, simply cut squares (or rectangles) of construction paper and draw shapes, letters, and/or numbers on each square.  If you want the game to last longer, you can laminate your game pieces as I did. I made shapes, letters, and numbers so that the game can advance with my daughter - they have letters on one side and shapes/numbers on the other.  

                                                                                                                             To play, simply lay your game pieces out on the floor and call out a game piece (such as: yellow, yellow square, square, or A, etc.) depending on their skill level.  When you call out a game piece, your child's job is to find that game piece and jump on it.  There is no way to "win" the game and no way to signal the "end" just tailor it to your child.  We quit when she seems like she's done or when I get overly bored.   

I wrote the names of the shapes to give her exposure to the words.

Today, we played a variation where I put an oval at the top and had her jump on each oval until she reached the top - signaling an end to that round and a win for her.  I just changed the shape at the top for each round.

She got really excited when she won!

Then we moved on to letters.  To begin with, I didn't want to overwhelm her, so I just put out 6 letters - some of which I knew she was familiar with and a few that would be somewhat new to her.  She only needed a few hints and really enjoyed this version as well.  We'll add letters and switch out letters until she recognizes the entire alphabet.  

Nice thing is this doesn't take up much storage room and you can use it again and again.

The game was inspired by a game found in Gymboree's Toddler Play book, which you can find here.  We started playing this game months ago and now I can't remember which game inspired this one, but either way, it's a great resource.  

It's simple, but my daughter LOVES it - requests it all the time and it's great for working on the basics.  This is how she learned her shapes and now we're moving on to letters.

As always, if you play this game and take pictures or come up with a new variation, we'd love to see and hear about it!

Thanks for stopping by and happy playing!