I found a forgotten treasure on the bookcase this week: an alphabet book I’d made with my elder daughter several years ago. When she was four and really starting to be interested in learning letters we’d made her very own alphabet book, written and illustrated just by her. I remember she loved creating the book, thinking of which words to include and then drawing the pictures to match and how proud she was to have a book of her own. She’s nine now, with plans to be an author one day, so maybe they were the first signs of her calling!
If you have a pre-schooler I’m sure you’ll be adding in lots of letter practice as you read and play and chat together. This alphabet book idea is a great way to combine art and writing, and to put your child in charge of their own learning. It also makes a lovely keepsake, as it captures your child’s early style of writing and drawing and records a snapshot of what their loves and interests were when they were very small. Here’s how we made it.
We used cardstock to make the pages, in lots of cheerful colors. We didn’t work in alphabetical order but instead I asked my daughter to choose which letters she wanted to make a page for first. Of course she wanted to start with her own initial and it was interesting to see which order she went in next – picking words that were special to her and which she was familiar with. We made each letter on a separate piece of cardstock so that we could talk about alphabetical order at the end and re-organize the letters to go in the finished book.
Each letter had its own page, with the letter characters written in upper and lower case. My daughter picked something to illustrate the letter and wrote in the word to match her drawing. At the time this was a great motivation for her to try out some writing because she was in charge and putting together a book of her favorite things. Looking back it’s fun to see what her passions were – like the ruby slippers she’d seen Dorothy wearing at a performance of the Wizard of Oz.
Each page was hole punched and a cover wrapped round the outside, and then the book was threaded together with a piece of yarn – very simply constructed so my daughter could do all the steps herself, but it’s lasted these last five years very well.
More Teach the Alphabet Ideas
The Quirky Mommas have some other great teach the alphabet ideas for you
- Decorate your play space with these fabric wall letters
- Get active and play musical alphabet chairs
- A is for Apple Pie – so bake some letters!
- Or add in some sensory play and goop the alphabet
- Make your own touchy feely alphabet chart
- Or go on a letter detective hunt
How do you teach the alphabet to your child? Please do share an idea in the comments.
About Cathy
What a lovely idea. thank you for sharing and will start this little project with my minded child next week. xx
We have started something similar recently with letters making a large letter on a theme in a book to refer back to. So far we’ve done a and b but I have been told our next letter is j (all of letters within his name)
Can’t wait to do this when my kids get a little older. What a darling keepsake. Kinkos will bind books and if I make one I might take it there to make it durable for the kids. Thanks for sharing! Vicky from http://www.messforless.net
Cute & fun idea. That’s something the kids will love to read!
Thanks for sharing. I hope to do this with my little man. What age was your daughter when she made this?
Hi HG – she was four when she made it. I think it’s easy to adapt for younger or older kids – just depends on when they begin to be really interested in letters.
This is such a wonderful idea. My son is just beginning to read and his would be perfect for him. I REALLY love that you were not stuck on adding the letters in alphabetical order and tha you let your daughter decide on the order. Kids learn alphabetical order through the song and other means anyway. Having your child decide the order for the book really reinforces the learning.