A basket full of (alphabet) letters

The children in Kohavim found a basket full of magnetic alphabet letters today. Children took turns looking through the basket to find the letters they needed to spell their names. Searching for particular alphabet letters demonstrates how the children are able to visually discriminate between letters that may look similar such as E and F or C and G. The children enjoyed spelling their names and creating strings of alphabet letters. After placing the alphabet letters on the chalkboard, the children wanted to read their words. They moved a pointer from left to right, revealing their beginning understanding of the directionality of print, as the teachers read their names and strings of letters aloud. It was such a treat to see how the basket full of alphabet letters inspired such fun, organic literacy play.