Appearing “A”s

My son HATES flashcards.  I used them before to teach him his letters.  We had almost all of our letters learned, then we started being lax on it (because he hated it so much).  Now we only have a handful of letters learned.  So Mommy is retrying, but this time with a different approach.  A much more fun and creative approach.  We are doing appearing letters.  This example is of an “A”.

     

I drew an apple on a piece of white paper with a Sharpie.  Then I drew an “a” with white crayon in the middle of the apple.  I tried to get a shine off of the crayon in the picture, so you could see it. 

     

I gave my son a red paint marker and asked him to color the apple.  While he was coloring, I asked him what letter apple starts with?  He couldn’t tell me.  He started to fill in the apple and when the “a” appeared he recognized it!  I was so excited.  We have done this with “b” for ball and we will be doing it with “c” for cat.

It was fun and he learned without even knowing it.  :-)  Huge success!! 

Variation:  This would work great for older kids with math problems.  You can write out the math problem, then put the answer in white crayon.  Have your child put their answers down, then use a marker to reveal the correct answer.  They can see if the answers match up.  What a fun way to learn and reinforce math!

This post was linked with others for Friday Favorites at Daily Dwelling.