Literacy Activities

I don't think I've been on Pinterest as much in the past few years as I've been on it the past couple of weeks.  Marshall is constantly wanting to do crafts and he loves to learn, and I'm running out of ideas to keep him interested and busy!

This first activity I found is super quick and easy, and you probably already have all the materials at home.  All you need is a paper towel tube (or a few toilet paper tubes), blank stickers, and a pen or marker.  I used these leftover circle stickers from a yard sale. We quickly realized that these stickers didn't stick very well to the tube, so I put clear tape over each one as Marshall matched the letters.  I probably more tape on than necessary, but I wanted to be sure it was secure.  This paper towel roll has now held up for several weeks of playing, and I think it's from the extra stability from the tape. ha!

On the paper towel tube, I wrote all uppercase letters and on the stickers I wrote lowercase letters.  The idea is to match the uppercase & lowercase stickers.  You can go in alphabetical order if you want, but you honestly don't have to.  Marshall didn't, and I think he had more fun doing it in his own order.

Marshall has loved spelling ever since he first started learning letters.  If he hears a word in conversation, on the radio, on TV, etc., he'll ask how do you spell it. It can be the most random word, but he'll want to know how to spell it!  Last summer, we really started working on sight words, which he picked up in no time--it amazed me how quickly he was learning.

I also made this activity from things we had around the house and in our craft bin: paper, markers, letter beads, pipe cleaners.

I wrote out a bunch of sight words that he already knows, as well as some words that he's been working on.  He chooses a word to do and then looks through all the beads to find the letters to thread onto the pipe cleaner.  The most time consuming part of this activity was when I went through a jar of assorted beads finding all the letters to begin with! haha.

Hopefully these are some ideas you can do while we're all at home for the foreseeable future!