Alphabet City

Before we start a quick tip. If you are working with a toddler, it is probably better to just create the city with just 6-7 letters. Kids that age would enjoy this alphabet activity better when there is more space to move about. Preschoolers would love creating more stories around the city and would appreciate the details. When my preschooler and I had some very rare alone time together we planned on creating a fun alphabet activity for the younger sister. Big sister loved creating something special for her sister, it made her feel responsible. We sat about with our pipe cleaners and made letters out of them. This turned out to be a GREAT fine motor exercise for my almost 5 year old. Fine motor activities in general are a great precursor for future pencil holding, combine that fine motor actitivity with an alphabet activity you got yourself a wonderful hands on learning activtity.

At 5 most children have mastered letter recognition, but building the same letters from memory and creating them is a little challenging- a challenge a 5 year old will enjoy.

After a couple of breaks here and there we finished the entire alphabet. Now we are ready for a playful alphabet activity.

Next I put down an white shower curtain purchased from the Dollar Tree. It is super wrinkled due to its serious usage. Ha! On the curtain I drew a very simple road way and added the LEGO buildings my toddler had made earlier. Then I stood up the pipe cleaners using some play dough. My preschooler loved helping me set up this alphabet city for her sister. Again it was another time to exercise those fine motor skills- getting the letters to stand up using play dough. It’s an easy task for adult though, just in case you are planning on doing this just by yourself.

Invite your eager toddler to drive and recognize those letters.

Few things I observed during playtime

My toddler was very keen on jumping through the letters, over the letters and in a few cases under the letters while screaming ” Move over J, I’m going to bump into you”* letter recognition*

For the most part my toddler did not drive exactly on the roadways. She was interested in circling around the LEGO buildings while wishing “Hello” to the letters. * Letter recognition and pretend play*

After a while letters obviously HAD to get into fights. Fights mean the pipe cleaners letters being torn apart. I had to gently distract her and have her letters be nice to each other.

My older child (5 years) had just as much fun in a different way. Owing to her age, she had more of a story going on around the letters. While driving around the alphabet city she had created an entire chapter of a book. Story telling abilities

My kids enjoy playing with cars but not the extent that they are obsessed with them. Even they adored this activity and played with it for a long time. I can totally see how a child with big interest in vehicles having fun with this alphabet activity.

Thanks for reading