Alphabet in Action: How do you teach the alphabet?

When I learned that I was teaching first grade a few years ago my first thought was to panic. What did they know at that this age? Do I really know how to teach them to read? What about my kiddos who didn't even know the alphabet? If you're in the same boat as I was, I have a solution for you!

Last year I found a video of a teacher singing a great alphabet song that practiced the sounds along with coming up with an action for each letter. I knew I just had to try it out. At the beginning of this past year I had 3 students who knew about 5 letters and sounds. After singing this song A LOT, they were all readers by the end of the year. {Oh my how I hope they've kept it up over the summer!} I really credit their ability to learn the alphabet and thus becoming readers to this song.

You want to see my students sing it, don't you? I looked back at the few takes I have of them singing it {completely adorable, I'm going to miss them SO much} with full intentions of sharing it with all of you BUT, I don't have permission to share. Imagine 22 of the cutest kids in their uniforms doing a call and response song and hopefully you can imagine what it's like in a class. So, next best thing....my 2 sisters. They're going into 5th and 7th grade this coming year so they're not quite the target audience for this song but I had to show you somehow! They're both very sassy girls. Can you tell that they're dancers? That's what I attribute all of their theatrics to. Here's what the alphabet in action song looks like:

To help my students this year, I've made alphabet cards and some other materials that correspond to this song. I contacted Carrie from C & C Teach First to create the clip art for this song. She was so nice and did a wonderful job! Last year we just used my curriculum's alphabet cards which did not match up. Remembering that G was girl was a bit confusing when they were seeing a picture of a gate. Thank goodness we won't have any confusion this year! 

Here's a look at what I made:

I'm super excited to start the year off with this. I've worked really hard to put this together and have decided that this will be my first TPT product for sale {yikes!!}. If you're interested, here is what is included: 

*Full size alphabet cards with a teal chevron background

*Small alphabet cards with a black chevron background

*An alphabet book. For each page students will practice tracing lower case and capital letters. They can also trace and practice writing 2 sentences that correspond with the picture. 

*Desk name plate

*Alphabet Chart 

Click here if you'd like to download a preview and check it out further.

The first person to comment will receive this for free! :)