This letter matching game helps my beginning reader mind his ‘p’s and ‘q’s…and his ‘d’s and ‘b’s. The sensory experience of reaching into a bag of beans brings a tactile aspect to it that’s fun too.
My six year old has been having a hard time telling the difference between a few letters, both between uppercase and lowercase and backwards and forwards. I created this little game out of a pile of dried lima beans to help him learn to differentiate between letters that are easy to mix up.
All I did to make these was to write the letters in permanent marker on the beans. We had this cloth bag available which seemed like a natural fit.
You can play with these many ways:
- Have your child draw out a letter one at a time and create sorting groups.
- Dump all the beans on a counter and sort them that way.
- Draw out a letter and hold it up for your child to identify.
- Enjoy playing with the letters- “Look at that! ‘d’ can flip around and become ‘p’….”
I’m looking for more fun ways to help my kids learn to read; I recently ordered Games for Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read
Do you have suggestions for learning the difference between similar looking letters?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Such a great idea! I love the sensory experience combined with learning fun.
What a cute idea! Here’s another tip that has been super helpful for my own kids as well as the kindergarten/1st graders that I work with. http://www.cometogetherkids.com/2011/09/easy-letter-reversal-solution.html
Laura- your hand trick is great, thanks for the link!
This is such a great idea! And you can use this method in so many different ways. You created a gold mine of opportunities! Thank you for sharing! I’ve pinned and plan on spreading the word!
This is so timely to me! I just saw letter stones in a teaching catalog at $29 for a bag of upper case and $29 for a bag of lower case letters on small smooth stones!! Girl, you just saved yourself $60 and didn’t even know it!
Ha! That’s great! Well, I hope it works out to make your letters