This is a kid-approved activity that we use in our homeschool to help practice and reinforce letter recognition and upper/lowercase matching.
This is what you need:
- 8 downloadable, printable pages
- cardstock, at least 7 sheets
- yarn or string
- 26 clothespins
- marker
- scissors
- 2 chairs
- laminator, optional
This is how you prepare the activity:
First you have to make the little shirts with the uppercase letters on them. I drew all of mine and wrote the letters on them, but I’ve made it easy for you – you can download 8 printable pages that have all the shirts with the letters on them, which includes an extra page with blank shirts. Just print the pages on cardstock, laminate, and cut out.
Next you will need to write the lower case letters on all the clothespins, one letter per pin.
Then tie the yarn or string between two chairs (or whatever else you’d like to use as your posts), making the clothesline about six feet long.
This is how you use the activity:
Have your child match all the uppercase shirts with the lowercase clothespins and pin them on the clothesline. I lay out all the shirts on the floor so the child can see all the shirts easily. If this is too overwhelming for your child, just start out with 3 or 4 letters at a time and slowly add in more letters as your child gets more confident.
Adapting the activity:
If your child is learning the uppercase letters but not the lowercase ones yet, use blank clothespins and call out a letter for them to find and pin it onto the clothesline. Again, start out with only a few letters if need be.
If your child is learning the letter sounds, you can call out a letter sound and have them find the appropriate letter and pin it onto the clothesline (you could use blank clothespins or the ones that have the letters on them for this one; it’s up to you).
Storing the activity:
When we are done, I put all of the shirts and clothespins in a gallon size ziploc bag and store them with our busy bags. To see how we store our busy bags, check out our schoolroom post.
To download the 8 printable pages for this activity,
just click on the graphic below.
I’m visiting from Mom’s Library. I’m familiar with your blog, but I just saw now that I never liked you on FB, so I’ve done that too. This is a very bright and cheerful activity. Thanks for sharing!
This is my post: Teaching Amanda Her ABCs
http://abooksandmore.blogspot.com/2013/05/teaching-amanda-her-abcs.html
Wonderful activity – I am going to pin this to use this summer – thanks!
Marissa
http://forfunreadinglist.blogspot.com
What a great idea 🙂 I will surely be trying this out with the tot 🙂
Love it!
Great activity 🙂 Thanks for sharing at Thriving Thursday 🙂
This is a great idea! Thanks for linking up at Family Fun Friday at http://happyandblessedhome.com Blessings! Diane
Great idea! I like the suggestions of how to use it for different alphabet skills. I’ll have to try it with my little girl!
What a fun, clever idea! I’d love for you to come link it up at TGIF linky paty – http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2013/05/tgif-linky-party-75.html =)
Beth
What an awesome idea! I love it!!
Love it!! I teach pre-k 4 and I will be starting my clothes study this week. A great addition to my Library center. I plan to scaled down the letter shirts to smaller size to add to the writing table as a individual activity. I just purchased the small clothes pins from Michael’s to accommodate the smaller version. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Excellent!! Thank you so much!!
I’m looking for some ideas to teach my students the alphabet and tadaaa I found your blog. Thank you so much 🙂