Teaching Tuesday--Practicing letters

Is your toddler extremely active?  Mine can turn his baby sister's blanket into a sled in 2.5 seconds.  I turned around this afternoon and he was pulling her around the house.  You'd think we had my daughter just for his entertainment.  Anyways... that's a side note.

I'm constantly looking for ways to keep him busy and teach him at the same time.  Since the year began, we've been trying to learn the alphabet.  He's doing pretty well and we're so proud of him. But it's a challenge to keep it interesting for a 2 year old.  However, this is a great idea.

Materials:

Magnetic alphabet letters

Small soft ball

Directions:

1. Let up the letters on a flat smooth surface.  The letters from the leap frog set work great for this.  Otherwise, you will only be able to set up certain letters.

2. Bowl the ball toward the letters and see which ones your toddler can knock over.

3. As you set them up again, talk with your toddler about the colors, the letter names, even try counting how many your toddler knocked down.

4. Have fun with this.  It may not last long, but it will be a chance to squeeze in a few minutes of learning and focused energy for an active toddler.