Alphabet Balls

Some of you may know, George started school in September and since then we have been working a lot on phonics. Well actually let me re-phrase that, i have been working hard on thinking of fun ways to get George interested in phonics. I ordered these coloured ping pong balls from Amazon and used a sharpie marker to write the alphabet on them. I popped them in a bowl and presented them to George. He picked one out and asked me what it said. I told him the letter and the sound and we carried on like this for a while.

George soon extended the activity himself by swirling the balls around and mixing them all up...

He pulled a few out after swirling them with his hands and then he held the bowl and mixed the balls by moving the bowl around and around...

Lots of concentration went on when manipulating the bowl and balls, just look at his tongue sticking out- a true sign of concentration!

George picked out a few balls he was unsure about, but he was confident enough to have a go at what they were and to ask me if he had no idea. He was very pleased with himself when he picked one out that he recognised. Below is him picking out a 'm'.

This activity was cheap to create and once the balls arrived it was very quick to put together. It can be adapted too. Once George had had enough of swirling the balls around in the bowl, he tipped them all out, picked them one up and tried to identify it before throwing it back into the empty bowl. He carried on this play until all the balls were back in the bowl.

More recently we have done a bit of bowling with them, bouncing them on the kitchen floor and had them in the bath.

In the bath he picked them out at random and tried to name them and then I picked one out and then Daddy did.

George then decided to shoot the ping pong balls out of his pirate ship's canon. 

If you fancy making some of these, it'll probably cost you around £5 if you go through the amazon link above. It would cost you a little less if you brought plain white ping pong balls and be just as fun but perhaps not as appealing to your little one! 

This activity stimulates learning in the following areas:

Language development- as he talks about what he is doing, asks questions and labels the letters

Physical development- manipulating the equipment he uses

Literacy- labeling the phonics

Creative Development- using his imagination to extend his learning and introduce role play