Being a mom with a young child, all I think about every.single.day is how much he is learning! I have been a stay home mom with my son from the day he was born, which means his education is completely based on what I am teaching him. Talk about pressure. I was approached by a writer named Alexa Elheart, who recently graduated from the University of Utah and has a passion for volunteering and writing about childhood development. She wanted to share her writing with my readers on a topic that I am passionate about, and I know all you moms (and future moms) are as well.

Fun DIY Projects to Promote Your Child’s Literacy and Creativity

Did you know that the simple alphabet games you play with your child can have a huge effect on his or her reading and writing skills later in life? It’s true! According to a study conducted at Florida State University in 2010, “children’s knowledge of letter names and sounds is the best predictor of their later reading and spelling abilities.”

Literacy skills are crucial abilities that children need to start developing at a very young age. Foundations all over the country like the Women's Leadership Council of the United Way focus on improving and promoting children’s literacy in the community because it is such an important cause.

Fortunately, there are a lot of fun ways to develop these skills with your child. Here are some great DIY projects that will help flex your child’s literacy muscles!

Felt Alphabet Board

A felt alphabet board is a great toy you can use to practice spelling and reading with your child in a fun, creative way. To make this project, you will need a foam-core board of any size you’d like, a large-enough piece of felt to cover the board, other colors of felt sheets, packet of felt letters and numbers, staple gun, staples, hot glue gun, and scissors.

Center the foam-core board face-down on the large piece of felt.
Wrap the felt taut around the board’s edges and staple it to the board using your staple gun. The felt board itself is now complete!
Now you just need the felt shapes to play with. You can find packets of felt letters and numbers at your local craft store. If you’d like to include other felt shapes, simply outline a shape you’d like on a different color of felt with a fabric pen and cut it out using scissors. If drawing isn’t exactly your forte, you can find thousands of free stencils online!

Voila! You now have a felt board your child can play with to practice spelling and alphabet-recognition, as well as to become a genius storyteller!

Alphabet Monster

The alphabet monster toy is a very fun toy thought up by Jenae at I Can Teach My Child. Kids love it, and best of all, it’s very easy to make! For this project, you will need a plastic baby wipes container you are no longer using, 52 bottle caps from plastic bottles, large googly eyes, a piece of colored paper or foam, tape, one-inch round label stickers, and a sharpie.

Open the wipes container and tape the googly eyes to the underside of the container lid. These will now be the “monster’s” eyes!
Cut the piece of paper or foam to fit the front of the wipes container. Next, cut some jagged teeth along the bottom of the paper or foam. This will make the container look more like a monster while also covering up the original wipes label.
Place a one-inch label on each bottle cap. Write one upper-case letter of the alphabet on each bottle cap. Next write one lower-case letter on each bottle cap. That way you can practice both upper- and lower-case letters with your child!

Your alphabet monster is finished! You can now play with your child, having them find different letters and “feed” them to the monster. This will help your child recognize and learn each letter of the alphabet! Once your child has mastered letter recognition, you can start practicing spelling out full words.

Have Fun While Learning!

These DIY toys are great ways to have fun with your child while also seeing results in improving his or her literacy; enjoy!

Sources:

A Meta-Analysis of Alphabet Learning and Instruction

ICanTeachMyChild.com

Women's Leadership Council

Alexa Elheart