There is one really easy thing you can do to promote early literacy in your home – put some magnetic letters on your fridge. Or on your dishwasher or on a metal cabinet. Magnetic letters are just like the Montessori movable alphabet but on a magnetic surface!
We can put our child’s name with magnetic letters on the fridge to help them recognise their name. We can use the letters to help with letter recognition. The children can play and start to put the letters together, later they can write their own words and even write notes. Otto loves to make up new words and asks me to pronounce them.
Here are a few ways we are using magnetic letters in our home.
Otto is very into writing cvc words, these are really first words, but he’s still feeling accomplished to complete them. I have jumbled the letters on the cabinet, and he sorts them and puts them in order.
We like to start with lower case letters.
For spelling. Otto asked me how to spell zebra. So I said, “come over here and let’s spell it together”. We sounded out the word, and together, we spell zebra with the magnetic letters.
Later he wanted to spell doughnut. So again, we spell it together with the magnetic letters, and this time he writes it down. He still has a lot of work to do with letter formation, this is very early writing work for him.
This is super sweet. Otto wanted to write a letter to a friend, so we spell his name out with magnetic letters.
A chowki is a perfect surface to write or draw while working on the floor! We will put this letter in the mail tomorrow.
Another letter to another friend. I adore all the ❤️s. This is real and relevant language work.
A letter for Nana.
We use large magnetic letters (AU) with red consonants and blue vowels. We also use Melissa and Doug animal magnets, but more realistic ones are available. Many Montessori schools use different colours for consonants and vowels, if your child is in a Montessori school, it may be worth using the same coloured letters as the school. Melissa and Doug are always an affordable option, and the natural wooden letters look good too.
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In Australia, Entropy has the Melissa and Doug magnetic letters, Kmart has an affordable option in a good storage container, and Modern Teaching Aids has various versions.
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We have these fruit and vegetable magnets; they are colourful and look great on the kids’ fridge. Farms animals have lots of cvc words for children to learn (cat, dog, pig, cow, hen, fox).
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