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Do you have a bunch of foam letter mats lying around your house? These mats offer endless opportunities to learn and play with your children. Below we have outlined several fun and educational games using foam letter mats that will inspire early spelling and reading skills, while getting your kids active and moving.
ABC Roadway
In this game drive letter to letter – bonus points for making it to all the letters A-Z!
You can also fill a toy car or truck with letter cards and ask your kids to drive to the letter on the card.
Steps:
- Put together a road by connecting the foam letter mats.
- Fill a toy truck with letter cards.
- Ask your kid to pick a card and call out the letter.
- Drive to that letter on the map.
- Depending on your kid’s reading level ask them to spell or think of a word that starts with that letter.
ABC Twister
Is there endless energy in your house? ABC Twister is a great way to get the jitters out. Have your kids move while also practicing their reading and spelling skills. The rules for this game are simple. Call out a letter and have your kids place whatever hand or foot that can reach that letter. See if they can stay upright the more letters you call out.
ABC Hopscotch
Hopscotch is another great game to release energy. It’s also a great teaching tool. Not only will your kids become better familiar with the alphabet in this ABC version of hopscotch but, they will also get in more counting practice as they jump from square to square.
Steps:
- Align the mats to form a hopscotch court.
- Toss the bean bag and hop to the letter.
- Once the bean bag lands have the kids shout out the letter.
- Have them jump/hop to the letter where the bean bag landed.
ABC Dice
This a great activity for children learning how to spell and expand their vocabulary!
Steps:
- Create three cubes that will become your dice.
- 2 cubes will only have consonants and the other cube will be vowels.
- Roll the dice and see if you can make any three letter words.
Tip:
- You can level up this game by adding a timer!
- You can also make several dice and form longer words.
Share With Us!
There is so much potential for memorable creations from these activities, we hope you will share some of them with us! Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.