Learning Letters: Parent Approved Tools

Lately, my 3-year-old son has been very interested in learning his letters.  In my quest to capture this enthusiasm, I’ve found some fun learning tools that I wanted to share with fellow readers:

1. LeapFrog Interactive Letter Factory Flash Cards  – We were already a fan of LeapFrog’s Junior Book Pal.  The system centers around an adorable little dog that your child can hold over books and the pages come to life.  Even better than the books, I am in love with LeapFrog’s letter flash cards.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve pulled out a few cards at a time and quizzed my son on the letters.  If he struggles, he can hold his little dog over the flash card and the card comes to life with songs and sentences about the individual letter at question.  I’ve even caught my three-year-old working on his letter flash cards by himself.

2.  Letter Parking Lot – I was “Pinspired” by someone to create a “parking lot” out of poster board where each “parking spot” is labeled with a letter or number.  This simple board took me about 10 minutes to create and we’ve seriously spent hours parking our cars in the little spots.  I call out, “Please park your car on the Letter P” or whatever.  Simple, cheap, and educational fun.

3.  Netflix – It’s not realistic for us parents to be on the floor playing with our children all hours of the day.  I’m thankful for a few choice programs off of our Netflix account when I need the time to get other things done around the house.  I suffer less guilt with TV-time when I can put educational shows like PBS’ Super Why and the LeapFrog episodes called Phonics Farm and The Amazing Alphabet Amusement Park.  I don’t mean for this whole post to be an advertisement for LeapFrog, but the company did it again with those two mentioned episodes.  Each show goes thru the alphabet in a fun way and I can hear my son yelling back at the TV about the letters on the screen.  How fun for this generation to learn with so many varied technological advances!

These are just a few of my personal latest discoveries.  What ideas do you have for teaching letters and other simple educational concepts?

I would love to hear what’s working in your home.

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