Creative ways to teach three-year-olds the alphabet? My nine-year-old is doing virtual schooling, and I felt that it was a perfect opportunity to teach my three-year-old the alphabet before she starts preschool next year. I wrote out the ABCs and 1-10 on index cards, bought a trace book and a pen control book to teach her with, what’s other creative ways to show her?
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Get on pintrist for ideas!
while cutting finger/toe nails sing the abc’s. did it every time for each of my 3 kids. after a while when they were 1-3 it became a game
Dave and ava have a great song and also amazing app, where they can colour and trace the letters, my boy loves it, hes 2 next month!
The Alphabet song…Alphabet magnets on the fridge or bath tiles…
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My native loves chicka chicka boom. It has all the letters climbing trees
Chalk boards, mine loved them
Phonics!!! Look up the zoo phonics songs. Sing them. Work on 2 letters a week. Do simple projects with household items for the week. 
Just do very small things and don’t overload. 
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Same as the numbers, work up to it and don’t just dump it out at once.
Maybe try one or two letters a week and a number. 
Definitely go on Pinterest for ideas for those!
I have alphabet shaped cookie cutters/stamps for play doh. We also have some flash cards with numbers, letters, shapes, colors, etc. And use those to play go fish.
When my son was little we did alphabet snacks. Monday would be Apples and when they eat them a is for apple. B is for beans or whatever. Each day a different letter a different snack. It worked wonders. Each month we would start over with different foods following the alphabet. He learned his alphabet, and tried a lot of different foods. Also we had an alphabet puzzle, and did age appropriate writing books.
Shaving cream on table and trace the letters. Thats what i did. But to teach verbally it was just repeative when washing body when brushing teeth when washing hands. Etc one letter at a time when he can write one without you showing move on the the other. I did that too then when we had 5 down id have him write the five if he needed help we would practise this until he could do it with out reminders. Also letter games on tablets too! Bath crayons or paints.
I know a lot of people are very anti electronics when it comes to young children, but abcmouse helped so much. My daughter was reading at 3 because she played phonics games on the computer with me… and I do put on the occassional educational video for my 1.5 year old on YouTube and he’s picking up a lot from those already, including sign language. A little bit of screen time isn’t going to rot their brains and can be beneficial.
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Any thing with rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. Keep it fun! Read to your child. Lots of kids books like Dr. Seuss, Bernstein Bears, etc. are great.
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When my daughter was about 18 months or so I got her a wooden alphabet puzzle that I we would play with at least once a day and I would make sure we would say each letter every time she would put them in the right slot in the puzzle, by the time she turned 2 she pretty much recognized every letter in the alphabet… repetitiveness was key for me when teaching her and using something fun like the puzzle made it more interesting for her to learn…
Leap frog! My kids loved it!
Salt tray. And turn the letters into animals. My daughter learned them in a week. Just look up alphabet animals. Helped so much
Starfall, puzzles, writing them and saying them, alphabet cards. So many ways. Oh leapfrog too.
Simply sing the song. Often. Kids love songs.
Montessori method letter sounds. Theres youtube videos and you can buy different activity things to do hands on.
Constantly singing with visuals
The alphabet rap! Its on YouTube, we sing and dance to it.
The Dr Seuss ABCs book is my sons favorite and I credit it with his knowledge of the alphabet! We also have a wooden alphabet puzzle, and we’ve been playing a game where we started off by giving him a letter and telling him to do an action that started with the letter “Jump with the letter J!” Or “Put the letter P on the potty!” Now that he can identify the letters better we first give him a letter to find, then give him the action. Next step will be to have him find a letter and then have him come up with his own action that starts with that letter.
Easy cheese and crackers. I taught some of my kids this way. Leap frog is an amazing tool for busy days. Letter theamed coloring books. (A, apple, alligator; B, bear, ball, etc)
Do they still sell Abc magnets? My girls loved spelling with them on the fridge while I was cooking.
Little baby bum(YouTube). My toddler is 2 years old now she knew her whole alphabet and could count to 10 by 2 because of that. It’s highly addictive though. My 2 year old will scream now if she isn’t aloud to watch it and she knows how to turn it herself to a different one but she doesn’t know how to go to YouTube quite yet.
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I know this sounds crazy but my daughter watch cocomelon and she can count to 20 knows her alphabet and recognizes both letters and numbers shes 3 now and could do it by 18 months. You might want to try cocomelon
At this age tracing with finger in Sand or salt will be less stressful to begin.
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we did bath crayon so in the bath or shower they can write on the walls
Magnetic letters for the fridge.
Make a poster
a is for apple (draw an apple)
b is for balloon (draw a balloon) etc
Make it bright and colourful
My daughter loved the book chicka chicka boom boom! Made her memaw read it constantly, then when we did her 2nd birthday party themed as chicka chicka boom boom, she went around and named all the letters, none of us knew she knew them!
I chose every letter of the alphabet as a day like an A for an apple and talk about the Apple all day make things with the Apple say words that start with A , next day B and so on… it’s a fun way to do things with your child and let them learn their ABC’s.
Post one letter all over the house per week so it’s seen all day and night for a week, talk about the letter and add thing’s that begin with the letter to the table for every meal so it can be touched and asked for and talked about.
Make A, B, C jars with flash cards and a pic of each letter attached to every jar. Let them play a match game to familiarize the child with the letter and correct jar… if correct add small prizes, I used crayons as to help with colors, straws to help with counting, and small zoo animals to help with recognition of animals.
Have fun🦋
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Personally I’m a big fan of shaving cream on the table with the fingers to start with. More fun than index cards.
Zoophonics videos my 4 and almost 2 year old love them. The youngest can follow along and do the signs as well. You can find videos on youtube
I made a fishing game. Laminate and cut out letters, paper clip each one and use a dowel rod with a string & magnet 
to catch the letters
My son loved learning with ABCMouse and we would also sing the alphabet while washing hands
I use flash cards for my 22 month old. He knows over half the alphabet.
Magnetics ABCs for the fridge to spell words.
I did letter go fish and bingo
My son loves Little Baby Bum on YouTube
I used that old fashion alphabet chart…and it worked
Abcmouse is good but it cost$. Also khan academy kids is great and it’s free.
i hate to say this, but youtube taught my son a lot better than i could. i obviously sang ABCs and counted things with him and stuff, but it was the repetitive compilation song videos like little baby bum that I would play for background noise when he went to bed that helped him learn, i just came home from work one day and he was singing ABCs to me. he can sing his ABCs, knows what some of the letters look like and count to 17 and he’s only 2.5. every kid learns different but that’s honestly what worked for me.
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We used this coloring book. My daughter cared more because SHE colored it. So we did one a day on average and hung them around our living room. Whenever she wanted snacks she had to name off the letters - and could get extra snacks too.
My Grandson who is 2 and 1/2, learned his alphabet and numbers from watching shows like “Super Why” and sesame street. He both recognizes the letters and knows the sounds. He is now learning to read.
Also the show little baby bum has a lot of counting and ABCs in their songs! My son loves it. He’ll be two on the 7th and it helped him learn 1-10 and all his ABCs. He even knows shapes and colors because of the songs.