ABCs Sharing

First Award for 4-Year-Old Son

I wanted my 4-year-old son to be able to get a badge or two right away, to excite and encourage him as he started in Keepers of the Faith. In order to do this I decided that we would start with the ABC's as he already knows them. There are no written requirements for this badge so I decided that in order for him to get the silver badge he must meet the following requirements.

1. Read, have someone read to him an alphabet book and list the Title and Author.
2. Recognize all the ABC's by sight in random order.
3. Be able to sing 2 ABC songs, one being the religious one we sing at church.

In order to get the gold badge he must additionally be able to do the following:

1. Trace all the letters of the alphabet.
2. Write your first name.
3. Know at least one sound that each letter makes.

Our club is growing. We have a couple other Keepers members who will probably be using this requirement list to earn the same badge.   (Evansville, IN)

Note: There are now requirements for this skill in the Little Keepers and Little Contenders.

ABC Place Mats and Alphabet Sounds Song

I began having my daughters make ABC place mats when my oldest was then 3 yrs old. I homeschool my daughters ages 7, 5, and 2 1/2 years, and we have our “Keeper’s Meetings” every Tuesday night after supper.

First to help my daughters learn their alphabet and their sounds we sang a song (found the idea from a website long ago).

Short A Sound (Tune of “This Old Man”)
Letter A says a.
Letter A says a.
Letter A says a, a, a, a, a.
A as in apple,
A as in ant.
Letter A says a, a, a

For the place mat, we would make a collage of pictures that began with the same sound as the letter we were learning.  I either printed the pictures from clipart I found online or from magazines. I also printed the letter, then had them cut and paste the pictures and the letter in a collage onto a piece of colored construction paper. Then I slipped the finished art work into a clear plastic folder sleeve to protect it from spills.

We would talk about the letter name and its sound during the week at each meal, then do over again for the new letter the next week. My girls not only learned their alphabet, but cutting and pasting skills as well.  (Collinsville, IL)

Learning ABCs the Caterpillar Way

When my daughter was learning her ABC’s, I took the lid of a wide-mouthed canning jar and traced it 21 times on green paper and 6 times on yellow paper.  Then I cut all the circles out.  I wrote each consonant on a green circle, and each vowel on a yellow circle.  The remaining green circle I used to make a caterpillar face.  We then taped the circles to the wall in the shape of a caterpillar.  It was easy to review the letters she had already learned and each day we could add one or two more letters.  (Blue Ridge, TX)