Little Sis is learning her letters.  We have several packs of alphabet flashcards that people have given us, but going through flashcards is not her (or most kids’) idea of a fun time.  I don’t think flashcard memorization is the best way to learn letters.  However, I do like flashcards as a quick assessment tool.

I wanted to see which letters she knew, so I laid the flashcards down in a path for her to jump on.  We started with them in alphabetical order so she could sing the ABCs.  Then I made a new path with the letters out of order.  To jump to the next card, she had to say the letter name.  If she didn’t know it, I told her and then took the flashcard after she hopped to the next one.  We finished with a path of letters that she knew, and a stack in my hand of letters that she needed to work on.

Other ideas to try:

• making the path a zig-zag line, circle, or different shape
• spreading the letters out to cover a whole level of your house…or even up the stairs!
• jumping, hopping, skipping, tiptoeing, walking backwards to the next letter
• building the path as you go (the kiddo says a letter and puts it on the floor to step on and builds her own path)