A is for Alphabet ~ A Unit Study for Little Ones

Teaching the alphabet to your children can be so much fun, especially if you have a few excellent books to accompany the letters. Make an alphabet scrapbook with your children and they will have something to learn from which was created by their own little hands.

Suggested Materials:  Teach Them to Your Children: An Alphabet of Biblical Poems, Verses, and Stories by Sarah Wean,  Binder with 2 Inch Round Ring, Clear Sheet Protectors, Blank Paper, Crayons/Colored Pencils, Old Magazines or Catalogs and Safety Scissors.

To begin your "Alphabet Scrapbook", read one story a day from the Teach Them to Your Children book. Each character building story represents a letter in the alphabet along with a Bible verse and a corresponding poem.

~ Once you finish reading about the letter of the day, have your children print the letter out (capital and lower case) on a blank sheet of paper with crayons or colored pencils. You may have to outline the letter in pencil for the younger ones to trace if the letters are too hard for them to copy themselves.

~ Together, name some items that start with that specific letter. For example, "a" is for apples, airplane, atlas…

~ Go around the house or your back yard and point out all the things you see that start with your "letter of the day".

~ Now, find pictures in old magazines and catalogs which start with the letter of the day and have children cut out the pictures and paste them onto the letter page they just made. 

~ Finally, insert each letter page into clear sheet protectors and place them in a binder. You may also have the children decorate a cover page to slip into the front of the binder or use our free cover page. 

By the time you are finished with the book, your binder will be complete with all the letters of the alphabet (in order) and you will have created an alphabet scrapbook! Study them daily with your children and you will have little readers in no time!

You can also continue this idea with a creation science theme using  the A is for Adam: The Gospel from Genesis book by Ken and Mally Ham. There are student activity ideas for each letter in the back of this book, a corresponding creation poem for each letter along with corresponding coloring pages. This book is a wonderful creation science primer for smaller children.

You may even want to read both books to the children and do a two day study per letter. Your children will be exposed to Scripture lessons, character building stories, poems, creation science, art and history with this approach making it a sweet bundle of learning for the little ones!

Some additional ideas would be to have the children memorize some of the Bible verses included in the books or draw pictures to go with the stories that were read to them.

You can also have the children color some vintage "Alphabet Coloring Pages" for free with this link (see the sample above). Just print out the letter of the day and they can color it after the lesson (be sure to add this into your scrapbook as well).

If you have older children, then you can include them in this study by focusing on their handwriting. Each print letter that the little ones learn can be a cursive letter learned for the older children. You could also have them copy a paragraph each day of the poem shared below for further handwriting practice.

You may want to visit here for other resources and ideas on "Learning How to Read".

Picture Book by Hermann Kaulbach

Praise God for Learning to Read

The praises of my tongue

I offer to the Lord,

That I was taught and learnt so young

To read his holy Word.

Dear Lord, this book of thine

Informs me where to go,

For grace to pardon all my sin,

And make me holy too. 

Here I can read and learn

How Christ, the Son of God,

Did undertake our great concern;

Our ransom cost his blood.

And now he reigns above,

He sends his Spirit down,

To show the wonders of his love,

And make his Gospel known.

O may that Spirit teach,

And make my heart receive

Those truths which all thy servants preach,

And all thy saints believe.

Then shall I praise the Lord

In a more cheerful strain,

That I was taught to read his Word,

And have not learnt in vain. 

~ Verses by Isaac Watts

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