I rock the ABCs

Today:s lesson was basically unplanned and went spectacularly.

I:d noticed that some of my kids on my every Friday classes still have problems knowing the names of the letters (expecially 3rd grade, but I taught them like 4 times last year? So I:m not surprised) so instead of going ahead with my planned lesson of Jobs, we branched off and went a little crazy.

First, we went over the alphabet song. Then we did the letter:s reading, one person per one letter. This has become my usual warmup.

Then I gave them cards and we played karuta. I called out the name of a letter and the first kid to smack their hand on it got to claim the letter as a point. Both lower and upper case on the tables so 2 people could get a point each round (I made enough cards over Spring Break for groups of 4 people each). I amused myself during this by first spelling my name, then going a letter at random. You:d be amazed how many kids hear *g* when I said *z.* Everyone down through 3rd grade did fabulously. 3rd was hard, because they were really talkative today, and because they don:t quite know the names of the letters yet, but we stumbled through it. I only got frustrated when we got to a letter that they didn:t know, and then just held up cards at random. The problem being that when they:d hold up the cards, they sometimes knew the letters in their hands, so they should know that that A is not a Q. But whatever. I still had the alphabet spelled out on the board so if there was a really big problem letter, I:d point to the board and sing, and then they:d get it. The 6th graders did it so fast we had time for an extra activity.

Then I asked them to as a group place the alphabet in order, upper case on top, lower case on the bottom.

When they were done and I checked it I told them they could play Memory. The 6th graders actually had time to mess their alphabets up and then switch card tables and fix it before moving on. But they were the only ones who were that fast.

Everyone seemed very enthused and it went really really well. I:m thinking next week I:m going to do colors. Because they already know most of them. And they should be able to spell most of them on their own. I:m also going to make them have to be able to tell me their names. Most of them can write their names, most can:t tell me how to spell them.

And yes Mom, your suggestions did help me come to this lesson. Thanks.