Guest Blogger - Great ABC Matching Game

This is a fantastic post from guest blogger Pamela at Rayos de Kinder (that's Kinder Rays en ingles!).  She has a great little blog, with lots of tips for teachers who teach immersion, bilingual or just regular old kindergarten.  Enjoy!


Letter Matching Game
Did anyone buy those letter coasters from the dollar spot?? I did! And I ended up making a matching game out of it that I'd love to share with you. Now, you must know that I am NOT crafty, creative, etc. so my version is simple, but judging from many of your wonderful blogs I'm sure you can make it a lot more "pretty".

Before I continue let me just thank Mary for giving me the opportunity to be a guest blogger. THANK YOU!! I am a new blogger, new mother to a beautiful 9 month old girl, and love to share (and take) ideas. This will be my 4th year teaching kinder in a dual immersion school in Southern California. I actually teach Spanish language arts all day. My partner and I teach the same lesson twice a day, switching with each other's class, with only a 30 minute ELD lesson to another coworker's class. The kids adjust . . believe me. Now, moving on . . .

I started with 3 dollar spot coaster sets (25 of the same color and letter per set) in order to make 2 sets of the game (need 26 for English and 29 for Spanish) and bought a plastic queen mattress cover from the dollar tree. I actually should have just bought a dollar tree plastic table cloth though. Much easier. ACTUALLY, to complete the 2nd set I think I'll go to the local thrift store and purchase a plain white sheet. It'll last longer and maybe the colors will pop out more.

Since each set of coasters is only of 1 letter I typed up and printed out all the letters of the alphabet to match with the pattern of coaster colors I had decided upon: pink, blue, purple. (I could have just done them all in black, but . . . you know. I KNOW YOU KNOW :) Click here to get a copy of the letters. If you need it tweaked just e-mail me.

I printed them out, cut them up and modge podged them onto the coasters. This is the first time I used modge podge as glue! I know, a little late in the game, but I had no idea until you lovely people filled me in on the not so secret secret.

Then I took the mattress cover, cut it in half, and slit the corners (since it was fitted). Then of course, I didn't like the way the corners looked so I cut a wavy corner. Better than before. I think.

before

after (I tried :)

Then I just traced circles in random positions using a sharpie (in the color of the coaster, of course!) and wrote the corresponding lowercase letters in them). Just be careful to write the letters all in the same direction so that the kinders don't become confused about correct letter formation. I added the title "las letras" (the letters) to help kids identify the correct direction of the letters as well as to give another little reminder of the difference between letters and words. Gotta get it in when you can!
In the end it looked like this:

sorry, hope you get the idea - it's the glare

]

And students simply play by matching the uppercase coaster to the lowercase letter on the sheet. I think they'll have fun. Anything giant sized (really practice in disguise - hahaha) is fun for the kiddos.

I will present it to them like this:

Just modge podge one of the extra letters to the front of a paper bag, place the sheet and coasters inside, and voila! Now, they'll just need a few lessons on how to fold it and put it away . . . . let's see how it goes :) This will be one of the activities students can "play" if they finish their required center work early.

Please let me know what you think! I love getting comments. Hope you'll keep checking in on my blog as well :-P  Happy New School Year to those who have or will be starting soon . . . you CAN wake up early . . . you CAN wake up early . . .