Week 33: Early Reading Practice with Alphabet Bingo

This deceptively simple activity packs in a lot of learning opportunities.

1. Start with the basic game we all played as kids. You simply find each letter in the alphabet on road signs. For young kids, this is great letter recognition practice, and you can play it just driving around town as well as on road trips.
   
2. Next, try playing it at the grocery store (or any store) to keep little ones entertained. Have them find the letters on the signs at the store. You can even mix upper and lower case letters to make this trickier.
   
3. You can also just have them find items in the store that start with each letter (doesn’t need to be on a sign).  This is great early reading practice that has them think about those first letter sounds.
4. Add in some handwriting and spelling practice by having them write down the items they find that start with each letter.  This clipboard and 4-color pen make it super easy to use on the go.
   
5. For older kids who are sick of the traditional alphabet game, you may want to add some more challenging goals. Make the game harder by requiring the words they find on road signs to START with the letter for it to count. It will take them longer this way, though you may have to make an exception for the letter X!
6. Mix it up (for big and little kids!) by printing  bingo  boards with the letters in a random order, and have them find the letters in the order they appear on the board.  This works great if you have more than one player and you can give them different boards because they are looking for the letters in a different order.
   
7. Challenge kids to find a bingo (5 letters in  row) all in a single sign.  This one takes patience – keep track of near misses (3 or 4 letters in a row) to keep them engaged.

There are so many possibilities with this twist on the alphabet game! Your kids can have hours of fun and do a little learning while they’re at it. Let me know if you think of other fun ways to use the alphabet bingo board!