Alphabet Bulletin Board

Here's an easy and creative approach to an alphabet bulletin board, thanks to Maimonedes Academy in Beverly Hills, California. Using large cardboard letters, children first paint each letter a separate color, then search for magazine images that begin with each letter and glue them on. This is a nice language building activity that combines creativity with decision making and fine motor development. Lots of cognitive development takes place as children search through magazines and decide which images start with various letters and which images will fit on their letter (some will be way too big!). In most classrooms, you will be able to assign one letter per child.

Have fun, and please send me YOUR ideas on building literacy skills through art. I'd love to hear from and post your ideas for others to see.
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Reading Rocks! Easy Accordian Books

Kedren Head Start of Los Angeles recently hosted a successful literacy fair called "Reading Rocks". The literacy fair included story-tellers, workshops and hand-on activities for 4 year old emergent readers, all intended to reinforce the joy and value of reading. Finding a hands-on bookmaking activity that was developmentally appropriate and affordable for so many children was a challenge. To solve this challenge we used simple sentence strips, cut them in half, then folded them into accordion books. Each child used colored markers and animal foam shapes to create a story narrative in their book. These four year olds had a great time working with their materials, and especially enjoyed the challenge of pulling the backs off the "peel and stick" animal shapes. While we were tempted to provide paints, this particular setting didn’t allow for fluid materials. Children had fun just the same, developed fine motor and problem solving skills, and each went home with a handmade book. Enjoy this same activity with any group of young children when you want to provide a creative, problem solving activity that promotes literacy.