Today we have a whole bunch of ABC alphabet fun with letter and sounds learning games and activities for toddlers and preschoolers to help you young students prepare to read with fun pre-reading playful learning ideas. Playing ABC games together helps young kids grasp letter sounds, phonics, letter recognition and sequencing through play!
ABC Games & Alphabet Sounds
Many parents have kids that are soon to enter kindergarten for the first time and are wondering what their kids should know before they head out to school on their own.
As a mom who once taught Kindergarten, I always wanted to make sure my kids are well-prepared and ready to begin their school career with a bit of an advantage by knowing their letters and sounds.
Related: Grab our free Kindergarten readiness checklist as a guide and Alphabet Tracing Worksheets for Beginning Writers
I have seen the value in children knowing their letters early. That said, I also recognize that kids are kids, and I want to make sure they have time to play – both independently and with me.
Learning Through Alphabet Games
Children acquire knowledge through play, so learning letters at our house is rarely a sit down structured time.
It’s a time of play and games!
The kids have fun and don’t even realize they are learning at the same time. I don’t believe we should leave teaching up to the schools. You get the great honor of being an educator of your child, and you can supplement what is happening at school by engaging your child in enjoyable yet educational ways.
Related: Check out our huge abc letters resource that has letter activities, letter crafts, letter printables and more for every letter of the alphabet!
I hope these resources help you feel equipped to take the reins in your own child’s education.
This article contains affiliate links.
Hands On Letter Games
1. Letter Toss Game
Muffin Tin Learning – Want to make learning fun? This game involving throwing pennies and will keep your kids engaged. They will barely know that this is actually a lesson.
2. Growing Letters Game
Alphabet Flower Garden – This garden is full of letters and learning opportunities. It is definitely a great way to explore and grow in alphabet knowledge.
3. Unlimited ABC Games for Kids
ABC Mouse – This site gives kids tons of alphabet and phonics practice through interactive games and printables.
4. Matching Letter Game
Magnetic Alphabet Board – This letter matching activity is self-contained and is a tool to get kids to match up letters and help with identification.
5. Touch and Feel the Alphabet Game
Play Dough and Magnet Letters – Letting kids explore using their senses is a great way to learn. Play Dough is a tactile way to watch this happen.
–>Need a Set of Alphabet Magnets? I like this Magnetic Letters Alphabet Fridge Magnets Set that comes in a handy carrying tub.
6. The Great Alphabet Race
Race the Alphabet – Do you have race tracks and a child that loves playing with cars? This activity is for you! If you don’t have your own track, here’s another version.
Preschool Alphabet Games
7. Fishing for Letters
Magnet Letter Fishing – Take your magnet letters and make a simple fishing pole. With a pond full of letters, your kids will have a lot of fun casting their line for another catch.
8. Pirate Vowel Game
Gold Coin Vowel Sound Drop – Your little pirate will have fun learning his or her vowels be playing this game.
9. Letter Stacking Game
ABC Letter Stack Game – Stacking up letters has never been so fun. They get to stack and stack until they fall, which I am sure will become the favorite part.
Related: Use these with our playful preschool homeschool curriculum
10. It Begins With…
Initial Sounds Blackout Game – Want kids to be able to identify the beginning sounds of words? This fun game will help them do exactly that.
–>Need a Wooden Alphabet Set with Flashcards? I really love the cuteness of this Tangame Wooden Magnetic Letters Alphabet Refrigerator Magnet Flash Cards for Preschool Kids that comes in a magnetic tin.
11. Letter Scavenger Hunt
Architecture Letter Scavenger Hunt – Have you seen those photos that find letters in architecture? Your kids get to go on their own letter scavenger hunt with this fun activity.
Creative letter Games for Alphabet Sounds
12. Interactive Alphabet Learning Games
A-Z Letter Learning Activities – This post brings you over 90 activities for each and every letter of the alphabet. What a great resource!
13. Climb the Word Ladder
Word Ladder – Kids get to “climb” to the top of the ladder as they successfully identify letters and sounds. They don’t need to worry if they “fall,” they have the opportunity to try again.
14. Flashlight Alphabet Game
Flashlight Alphabet Game from Happily Ever Mom – My kids are obsessed with flashlights. I know my preschooler would love this game!
–>Need Foam Alphabet Letters for Practice? This Gamenote Classroom Magnetic Alphabet Letters Kit comes in a plastic organization case and magnet board and would be great for home too.
15. Make a Letter Game
Letter Formation Activity – Using materials you probably have at home, your kids will have a lot of fun forming their letters.
16. Hungry Hungry Letters Game
Alphabet Monster – This hungry monster will only eat letters if you can say the name or sound of a letter. What a fun craft to make that also turns a great letter learning opportunity.
ABC Games that Help Kids Learn Letters and Sounds
17. Let’s Host a Reading Hop
Reading Hop – This letter learning game will keep your kids active and hopping all around. If you are looking for a way to take learning outdoors, you have found it.
18. Alphabet I Spy
Alphabet “I Spy” – Take the classic and beloved game of “I Spy” and turn it into an alphabet search activity. Brilliant!
19. Can You Catch the Letters Game?
Runaway Letters Game – Your child gets a chance to grab letters and runaway while you creativity beacon the letter’s return. This is a great way for moms, dads or teachers to interact with their kids during the educational process.
–>Need a Fun ABC Game? I love this ABC Cookies Game from Goodie Games that is a fun alphabet learning game for toddlers and preschoolers.
20. LEGO Spelling
Lego Spelling – If you add letters to duplex legos, you have a great way to work on sounds and words.
21. Letters Inside of Letters Activity
Making Letters with Letters – Learning letters will be reinforced over and over again as your kids use letters from magazines to create their own larger letters.
ABC Games for Pre-K
22. Letter Swat Game
Spider Letter Swat – Kids will enjoy learning their letters as they swat away at the flies in this entertaining game.
23. Letter Squirt Game
Squirt the Letter – This is a game I know my son, especially, would love. He loves anything squirt gun and anything water. Squirting the correct letter is right up his alley.
24. Letter Lacing Activity
Letter Lacing – This letter lacing, quiet bag activity works on fine motor skills while also developing the skills needed to develop in reading.
–>Need Letter Lacing Cards? I like this wooden set from Melissa & Doug that has both animals and letters on the sturdy lacing cards.
25. Alphabet Sounds Race
Letter Sounds Race – Get your kids moving with this letter sounds race. This is a great learning opportunity for your active kids! More alphabet sound learning activities are fun too!
26. Disappearing Letters Game
Disappearing Letters – Kids will learn to love to trace their letters as they see the trick to making them disappear.
Alphabet Games for Learning
27. The Game of Bang
Bang – Bang is a letter identification game that will be a lot of fun for the little gamers in your life.
28. Letter Chomp Game
Mr. Shark Alphabet Chomper Game – I love the idea to make a shark out of an envelope in general. Add the learning aspect of having the shark chomp letters, and you have a great game.
29. Letter Tiles Activity
DIY Bananagrams Letter Tiles – Here’s a really smart way to make letter tiles. You can turn them into magnets or play the classic Bananagram game with your creation.
–>Need a Bananagram Game? Here is the original Bananagram game for kids.
30. Make Pretzel Letters
Soft Pretzel Letters – Kids can learn their letters as they have fun making pretzel dough. Through using both the sense of touch and taste, this becomes a fun activity for all.
31. Travel Alphabet Game
Alphabet Words Game – This is a learning game that can be taken anywhere. Keep your kids occupied working on their letters at restaurants, home, car rides and more.
ABC Games for Letters and Sounds
32. Touchy Feely Letters
Sensory Bins with Letters – Sometimes the best way to help kids learn is to let them explore. This sensory bin will help kids do just that.
33. Alphabet Seek & Find
Seek-N-Find Alphabet – This letter game is like an eye spy for letters. It involves a plastic tube (easily substituted by a water bottle), and will keep your kids searching for their letters for quite some time.
34. Letter Formation Fun
Tactile Writing – Kids learn to write letters as they use rice and paint to feel their way through the process or writing.
–>Need a Wooden Letter Matching Set? I like this durable Alphabet flash cards and wooden letter puzzle set from LiKee Alphabet.
35. Homemade Domino Letter Fun
Craft Stick Dominos – These craft stick dominos are an easy, homemade version of a domino game with a focus on learning letters and matching symbols. What a fun idea.
36. Flashcard Games
ABC Flashcards – Flashcards can be used by a variety of games and activities like flashcard basketball. These ones are free. And so are these kids alphabet cards you can download & print instantly.
Related: Here are a bunch of ideas for flash card games for kids
How to Help a Child Learn Letters and Sounds Through Play
37. Make a Sun-Powered Letter Puzzle
Make a DIY shape puzzle using the sun with alphabet letters for a really fun matching game you can play inside or out. Or use this method without the sun to make this fun abc matching game for kids.
38. Collect Alphabet Treasures
Use these free alphabet labels to create small containers for each letter of the alphabet for a special letter collection activity!
39. Make Easy Alphabet Crackers
Making alphabet crackers has never been easier or more fun!
–>Need an Alphabet Snack? I like these Happy Tot Organics ABC Multi-Grain Cookies…yum!
40. Play Alphabet Zipline!
Use these alphabet printable letters to create your own alphabet zipline in your living room. It is really fun.
41. Play a Silly Letters Game
Try these alphabet games for preschool that are full of fun and a little silly…
42. Make Pipecleaner Letters!
Try to do some fun abc formation with pasta and pipe cleaners which is a fun way to explore letter shapes.
43. Make Bathtub Alphabet Soup
Use bath letters for a big big big batch of bubblebath alphabet soup {giggle}.
44. Color a Letter Coloring Page
- Letter A Coloring Page
- Letter B Coloring Page
- Letter C Coloring Page
- Letter D Coloring Page
- Letter E Coloring Page
- Letter F Coloring Page
- Letter G Coloring Page
- Letter H Coloring Page
- Letter I Coloring Page
- Letter J Coloring Page
- Letter K Coloring Page
- Letter L Coloring Page
- Letter M Coloring Page
- Letter N Coloring Page
- Letter O Coloring Page
- Letter P Coloring Page
- Letter Q Coloring Page
- Letter R Coloring Page
- Letter S Coloring Page
- Letter T Coloring Page
- Letter U Coloring Page
- Letter V Coloring Page
- Letter W Coloring Page
- Letter X Coloring Page
- Letter Y Coloring Page
- Letter Z Coloring Page
45. Let’s Play with Playdough!
These playdough pre writing activities are both fun and super hands-on learning.
46. Make Gummy Letters
This sour gummy recipe makes the cutest alphabet letters to learn and eat!
47. Try a Fun Alphabet Activity Book
There are so many quality workbooks for kids on the market right now so we narrowed it down to some of our favorites that just might fit your kid.
48. Color by Letter Activities for Letter Recognition Fun
We have a whole bunch of color by letter printable pages for kids that help them recognize letters while playing a game:
- Color by letter – A-E
- Color by letter worksheets – F-J
- Coloring by letters – K-O
- Color with letters – P-T
- Preschool color by letter – U-Z
49. Play the Missing Letter Game
Use one of our favorite preschool games, What is Missing? and use either letter flashcards or abc fridge magnet sets to create sequencing of the alphabet and then remove a letter or two.
50. Play Alphabet Beach Ball Toss
Modify our fun sight word game with letters instead of sight words. Your beach ball can be covered with the letters of the alphabet for throwing and catching learning fun.
Games for ABC Sounds
51. Learn and sing the ABC sounds song
I love this fun song from Rock ‘N Learn that goes through the entire alphabet with sounds for each of the letters.
52. Play an online ABC sounds game
Monster Mansion is a free online alphabet match game that kids can learn the abc sounds and match them with the proper letter on the proper monster!
53. Print & Play a letter sounds game
Preschool Play and Learn has a really colorful and fun letter sounds board game you can print and play at home or in the preschool classroom. Each player will pick up a card and identify the letter and /or say the sound that the letter makes.
More Learning Games from Kids Activities Blog
- Now that we learned out letters, don’t miss out on our number activities for preschoolers!
- When your child is ready, we have a big giant list of sight word activities that are fun too!
- We have some really fun games teaching kids how to read a clock.
- My favorite massive resource of fun is our kids science games here at Kids Activities Blog.
- It doesn’t have to be October to play some frightful Halloween games.
- Let’s play math games for kids!
- If you need to work out the wiggles, we have the best indoor games for kids.
- See these letter a crafts!
- Check out this printable abc chart!
What was your favorite abc game? Did we miss some alphabet activities that you do with your kids?
FAQs for Teaching ABC Sounds and Letters to Kids
We have tons of ideas on how to teach children the alphabet in a fun way, but here are some basic guidelines:
1. Create a game out of learning the alphabet.
2. Use flashcards in a fun and interactive way.
3. Sing the alphabet!
4. Hands on learning activities make the alphabet fun.
5. Put the letters in context so kids make connections.
The most important thing when teaching letters to kids is to make sure that the learning process is fun and engaging. Create a positive learning environment by using games, music, and tangible materials. This will help your child become more motivated to learn and be excited about the alphabet. Additionally, provide lots of fun opportunities for practice so they can become more confident in their letter recognition skills. Finally, praise your child for their efforts and successes along the way.
Learning letter sounds can be made fun by incorporating music and songs. Use recordings and YouTube videos that have catchy tunes and lyrics about the alphabet. Sing along with your child, to help them learn the letters in a more memorable way.
You can also assign each letter with an action to make it easier for your child to remember; like making the sound “sh” and then putting your hands up to your ears like a seashell.
Create word games!
Play charades with letters as clues.
Use tangible materials such as play-dough or sandpaper letters so your child can feel the shape of each letter. This helps them learn to identify and recognize each one more easily.
Great games blog article! This games puzzle has recently captured my attention and I can’t get enough of it.
Brilliant! I’ve been looking for sound games for my toddler!
nice post, thanks for share.