Letter park is a powerful activity for letter recognition.
I am looking to practice letter recognition in a stress-free environment with my preschooler. Drive and park allow me to see which letters he can recognize and which ones we can put on our list to reanalyze.
How? Because Drive and park is a casual game that allows him to take the lead and me to listen in. I’ve got all the details for you to try with your preschooler as well.
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My four-year-old attends preschool Tuesday-Friday. At school, he has been learning one letter per week. Every week we talk at home about what he is learning but wanted more. I need to know which letters are my preschooler able to identify by name.
I want to understand where my preschooler is at with his letter recognition to know how to help him at home.
Sure, I can wait for the parent-teacher conference, but why wait until it is too late?
I can help my preschooler now at home through play!
RELATED: Need more simple activities for kids at home? You will LOVE this list of ideas.
Drive and Park is a fun activity to review letter recognition.
Kids learn through play.
Why is this? Why don’t we use flashcards for letter recognition?
Simply put, learning through play relaxes the child and allows him to take more risks.
When you create meaningful play prompts for preschoolers at home, they have a chance to ask questions, make predictions, and extend their thinking.
You can create play prompts in your playroom or on your kitchen table with Breakfast Invitations. Whichever location you choose, your child is sure to expand his thinking in a relaxed environment.
RELATED: I love this collection of Alphabet games to keep at home!
Here, I combined two of my preschooler’s favorite things: letters and race cars.
I knew from previous learning activities like Drive and Drop and Color Words Parking Lot that race cars help promote my child’s learning through play.
So I grabbed the following supplies and got to work.
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- Race cars
- Painter’s tape
- Sticky notes
RELATED: Want an easy DIY letter recognition game for names? You can make this in a flash.
Setting up this letter recognition activity took a few minutes.
Please do not underestimate the success of an under-five-minute setup.
Here, we are looking for a simple play prompt that doesn’t involve extra gluing, cutting, and pasting. As a busy mom of three, I don’t have the energy for that.
Place the painter’s tape on your tabletop and create a “road like” design.
Write the letters of the alphabet on post-it notes. I chose letters A-M knowing that is what my preschooler has been learning in school. Again, I was curious about which letter names he was retaining.
Place the post-it notes throughout your roads.
Place one race car to the left of the letter recognition activity. Why place it on the left? Read about the importance of left-to-right progression here.
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Seeing which letters my preschooler recognized was super simple.
I sat on the other side of the table with my tea and called out letters.
Are you ready? Let’s drive your car to the parking spot Nn!
Hmm, I wonder if your car will make it to parking spot Ff. Does he have enough gas to get there?
I am looking to see if your driver knows the first letter of the alphabet? Can you ask him to drive it to the first letter?
When I talk with my preschooler, I try to use terms that he will connect with. Since he is a big race car fan, I chose words to move him along in our game.
I could have also kept a simple list of letters he recognized and letters that he missed to understand better which letters needed more practice.