Edition One

Published by

English Garden Books

Azuma 3-8-12

Tsukuba, Japan.

Copyright © 2012 by English Garden Books

ISBN: 9784990540265

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover Image and illustrations by Kaori Takahashi,

Table of Contents

Fishing for ABCs

ABC Milk Carton Houses

ABC Paper Cups

ABC Board Game

ABC Memory

ABC Blocks

ABC Bean Bag Toss

ABC Puzzle Race

ABC Scavenger Hunt

Uppercase/Lowercase Match

Uppercase/Lowercase Bingo

ABC Concentration

A Word Guessing Game

Ticklish Writing

An Upper/Lowercase Talking Card Game

Team Writing

Throw the Beanbag/Name the Letter

A Beginning Sounds Picture Game

Find that Sound!

Karuta

A Bean Bag Phonics Game

Muddle in the Middle

A Team Phonics Game

What Beginning Phonics Can You Spy?

An Addition Game with Dice

A Baseball Addition Game

Listening for Numbers

Listen Up/Find it First

Numbers and Alphabet

Can You Find the Missing Number?

Who Will Win the Big Money?

Musical Numbers

Rhythmic Listening

Ribbon Fun

Listen, Remember and Find

Flashcard Name Game

Can You Cross the River?

Put Your Hand In and What Will You Find?

Category Bean Bag Toss

Let’s Go to the Cafeteria

Little Shoppers

Colors and Categories

If I Say Banana

Little World Travelers

A Team Drawing Game

Job Cards

A Bowling Interview Game

Flashcard Fun

The Emotions Game

Three Hint Animal Quiz

Introduction

Whether you are new to teaching young learners or are a veteran teacher, it’s always good to have a few new tricks up your sleeve! Over the fifteen years that I have been teaching little ones both in the United States and Japan where I currently live, I’ve found these activities to work extremely well, and I want to share them with you and your young students. I’ve also included some websites that I believe to be particularly helpful in our quest to keep students stimulated and excited to learn. Some of the following activities are original and some are unique ways to introduce those tried and true lessons on which we all rely. Here are fifty ideas which I hope will serve as a springboard – helping you tap into your own vast creative reservoir! For video support for these activities, please visit our website and view our Activity of the Day.

I wish you happy teaching!

All the best to you,

Deborah Grow

http://www.englishgarden.co

Where Young Learners Unlock the World Through English and Music

LEARNING THE ALPHABET

A B C D E F G H

I J K L M N O

P Q R S T U V

W X Y Z

Activity 1

Let’s Go Fishing!

Fishing for ABCs

Children around the world love to pretend to fish. This is a popular children’s game in Japan and in this version, the fish are “ABC” fish.

Preparation

Draw and cut out twenty-six identical fish from construction paper. Mark each one with a letter of the alphabet and attach a paper clip. Although it is tempting to become artistic and make them colorful, it is a good idea to keep them simple by using construction paper of all the same color, and keeping the size of the fish uniform. This keeps the focus on the letter of the alphabet and not on the fish itself.

Next, make a homemade fishing pole. This can be made from tightly rolled paper secured with scotch tape, a little string, and a magnet. My personal version is a drumstick with plastic wire tied to one end with a dangling ring magnet.

Next, take a large piece of paper or poster board and make an ABC chart with one square for each letter of the alphabet.

Note - Although this game takes some preparation, once it is made it can be used for years! They never get tired of it. For sturdiness and longevity, you may want to cover the construction paper fish with clear contact paper or laminate them. This is my recommendation for all the craft pieces you’ll need, insuring that you’ll have them on hand, in good condition, for quite some time.

How to Play

For small classes, have the children take turns going fishing. Each child starts his or her turn by saying, “I’m going fishing!” Please be sure to tell the children not to swing the pole with the magnet around as it could hit another child. Let the child “catch” a fish, name the letter on that fish, and then match the fish to the corresponding letter on the chart. Once all the fish have found their home, sing the ABC song while pointing to each letter on the chart.

For larger classes, make two charts. Divide the children into teams and make two sets of fish. Have the children line up, and put the fish across the room. They then have to run, pick up the pole, go fishing, put the fish on the right place on the chart, put the pole down, and then run back to tag the next person on their team. The first team to finish wins!

How to Level Up

1.   Make one set of fish for uppercase letters and another set for lowercase letters. For beginners, make all uppercase fish one color and all lowercase fish a different color. Put all the upper case fish in one pond, and all lower case fish in a separate pond. Have the children take turns matching uppercase and lowercase fish.

2.   Turn it into a phonics fishing game. Find the fish that sounds like “buh” and so on.

3.   Turn it into a spelling game, for example, go fishing for the word “cat”. Note: the fish should be returned for the spelling game, otherwise the vowels will soon be gone!

4.   Instead of ABC fish, go fishing for new vocabulary words or picture cards.

Activity 2

Find the Right House!

ABC Milk Carton Houses

This is a task-based activity in which the children have to be able to identify a letter of the alphabet, and match it with the same alphabet letter in a different location.

Preparation