Fun ways to learn the Alphabet: Learn D with melody!

So how’s it going with Letters A, B, C? Hope your toddler has got into the groove by now! These activities are not only hands-on and fun to do but also comes toddler-approved as my 3-year-old son and his friends (aged 4 and 6 years) totally love this series. You can check out the articles on previous 3 letters in case you still haven’t! Letter A, Letter B, Letter C

 Let’s get started with letter D then! 
 

When we started with letter D, all I could think about was “dinosaurs”, as that’s what my son is currently in love with (among many other things!). So I had to put up a sensory bin for him and his friends where they could use their imagination to create a dinosaur park! I set up a tray in which I added:

• Dinosaur figurines
• Pebbles and marbles 
• Foam blocks
• Soil
• Clay
• Popsicle sticks

I left this as an open-ended “invitation to play” activity without prompting or guiding the children! And it was amazing to see what all imaginative things they came up with! 

After that we used some play dough to create uppercase letter and lowercase letter d. Needless to say, the children were quick to bring out the dinosaur figurines for this activity too!

After the hands-on play, we also traced the letter d sandpaper letter. I have also included an alphabet puzzle from Melissa & Dough. You can get similar ones from brands like SkillOfun, Little Genius or Frank. 

Coming back to Dinosaurs (Yet again!), I created this fun number match up game, where the children had to match the dinosaurs to their respective eggs. 

Another of my son’s favorite animal starting with letter D is dog! So I included a fun, Montessori-inspired dog bone scrubbing and rinsing work on the shelf. For this, I simply used a dog figurine, some water, a wee bit of toothpaste which was used as a scrub, toothbrush and a napkin. This was an instant hit! (actually anything to do with soap and water is 😉 ) – You can mimic such works for pretty much any objects be it shell scrubbing, pebble washing and the likes! 

To go along with the dog theme, I also hand drew some dog paws and taped them on our floor! The children had fun time jumping, skipping and walking on this path. A great gross motor activity 🙂

D is also for daytime! I created a day template and gave some foam stickers (flowers, sun, clouds, butterflies etc) for my son to stick on it! 

After that, we did a fun sorting activity focused on two professionals – doctor and a driver (both starting with letter D) – I gave him picture cards of various items (like medicine, injection, treasure chest, driver accessories), and my son had to find out if they belonged to the driver or the doctor. 

D is also for Days of the week! And this is actually a song that my son loves to sing (you can catch that on my YouTube Video!). I also created a fun days of the week printable to go along with the song!

And as always we like to review our “Letter of the week” folder which has picture cards of objects starting with letter sound “duh”. 

D is also for donuts (Yum!). So I created fun number sequencing puzzle cards. You can get this printable for free on my blog. 

You can ask your child to use pom poms, counter, flat marbles or stickers to fill the circles in or if you can get hold of a dot marker, hand him one!

We also like to review the uppercase and lowercase letters. My son scribbles few letters on his chalkboard, but it is totally child driven. Right now we are only focusing on tracing and pre-writing works 🙂 The letter cut outs that you see in the image below are available online by the brand names Kidken & KidoenterpriseFs. Both are a good resource of Montessori supplies in India. 

To see these activities in action, catch a glimpse here:

For now, here is my letter D video for a closer look at the activities: Here you will also find the link to my blog, which has the free printables wherever you might need them. 

Enjoy learning D with your child! Stay tuned for fun, creative, hands-on activities on ‘E’ next week!

Also read more about: Activities for A, Activities for B, Activities for C

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