Learning the Alphabet & Identifying Letters

I can’t recall where I saw the reel to suggest magnet letters for teaching little ones the alphabet. I would gladly link to that video to give the original idea credit too, so if you know who made that reel, please let me know.

I did not learn from that reel whether that parent made or bought her letters, but I had been looking in-store and online and hadn’t had much luck finding something similar. I couldn’t find any flat magnetic alphabet letters to buy, and many of the alphabet cut-outs and stickers were too large.

We do have other letter-learning magnets on the dishwasher, but still thought this flatter style would be helpful.

I am hopeful the new magnet letters won’t be as appealing to take off and throw on the floor. A lot of the other hand-sized letters seem to travel around the house, and don’t find their way home as often as I’d like.

So far, our kiddo has been really good about keeping her new letters in order and alphabet ready. She still confuses her letters easily, so I told her and the other kids to leave them in order for now.

They are allowed to rearrange the numbers and extra letters at the bottom, so the older one make their names or write simple sentences. It helps that they are able to play with some of them, so they don’t feel the need to sneak play with the ordered ones when I’m not looking.

I think them spelling words and names together is helping her to learn even faster. Having the alphabet at the top gives her something to refer to so she can find the letter that makes the sound she wants.

She loves songs, and having letters to point to inspires her to sing to me, while I’m doing chores or cooking.

I found my sticker sheet for posters at Surplus City. They are balloon style but I didn’t want to try and cut the funny shape at the bottom, so I cut it off. Now they remind me of Easter eggs.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with the extras, and I considered saving them for a different project. I’m glad I made them all magnets so we can practice spelling and counting too.

I unrolled a piece of magnetic sheet and cut it to the size of the whole sticker sheet. Then I peeled off the magnetic sheets’ paper backing. I stuck the sticker paper back to the sticky part of the magnet sheet. Not only is it a magnet, but it could still be a sticker someday.

I did wonder if she would peel all the stickers off the magnets, if I put it together this way, but so far so good. I wasn’t sure how well everything would stay glued if I did it sticker to sticker.

If she disassembles these later, I can still probably use the magnets for another project. She hasn’t tried to take them apart so far.

I will still continue to remind her that we only put stickers on paper just in case, because I have found other stickers on her desk, in her doll house, the laundry, and on my living room carpet.

While I don’t love the messes, I love how creative my littlest one is becoming. My heart overflows as I watch her figure things out and create her own special masterpieces.

Product List & Some Alphabet Favorites

Below is a list of some similar products to what I found to make our letters, and I’ll also link a few of the other alphabet learning tools that the kids have enjoyed.

Magnetic Sheet – I definitely got a better price buying this at my local Hobby Lobby, but this is similar if you don’t have a local store that carries this. It also has a good bit more magnetic sheet than you will probably need for this one project.

Alphabet Stickers – I preferred keeping my magnets small so they could make a single line across the dishwasher. I was also hoping they wouldn’t be as fun to pull off the fridge too.

Alphabet Dry Erase Board – Dad bought something like this at our local Dollar General and our youngest loves to “do school” now.

Word Whammer – You could probably find this at the kid’s store or yard sales for cheap, but it may not have all the letters. My husband 3D printed some missing letters for our hand me down. If you want the one I found on Mercari, this sign up link will save you $10 as a first time buyer.

Mr. Pencil – We have this game for our Leap Pad which you can also find at kid’s consignment stores pretty inexpensively. I will note, if your kids play in the car, Mr. Pencil may make them cry with frustration at some point. They have to trace the lines pretty accurately, and that can be challenging when being shook around in the car. Other than that, my kids have loved this, and it continues to be one of their favorite Leap Pad games.

Wrapping Up

I hope you found some helpful info, and thought of some fun ideas today. Have you found a great alphabet teaching product? Have you tried letter magnets to teach the alphabet? I’d love to hear if you have any tips, tricks, or have figured out how to minimize frustrations.

In the future, I might make some adorable fabric letters that I saw on Amber Simmons blog. I don’t have the correct Cricut rotary blade yet, but it’s on my list.

Thanks for reading with me today. I hope this week is treating you well. If you are like us and haven’t started your summer yet, best wishes that the last bit of school is amazing! I know I am dreaming of summer vacation..