This is a fun pretend play game that reinforces letter recognition while getting your child active around the house or at the store. You’ll need a couple of pipe cleaners and a print rich environment (make sure there are lots of things with words around)
- To make an instant inspector – make a “magnifying glass” out of a pipe cleaner by twisting it into a loop shape that has a hole big enough to place over the hunted letters.
- Tell your child that you need their help in searching for as many (target letter) that they can find around. For example: You can lead by saying “I’m searching for the letter ‘b’”, while looking through your “magnifying glass” as you walk around. When you find one, you can say “Here’s a ‘b’! Let’s see how many more you can find.”
- Have fun investigating throughout the place for as many letters as you can both find!
Extension ideas:
- You can also incorporate some math in by having them keep track of how many target letters they can find.
- You can use this as a review activity for several letters at once and keep track of how many of each letter is found. Incorporate math by having your child compare which letter was found more often, find how many more ‘f’s did you find than ‘b’s, etc. They can even make a graph!