Today’s pirate fun and learning activity that also supports the development of kindergarten readiness is inspired by a joke:
Q. What is a pirate’s favorite letter?
A. Most people think it’s the ‘R’rrrr, but really it’s the ‘C’ (sea) they love.
I think that a pirate’s favorite letter is ‘X’ because X marks the spot where the treasure is.
No matter which letter you and your child thinks is the favorite letter, pirates need to know them all so they can write clues and directions on treasure maps. For a play-of-the-day, kids can play and have fun with letters.
Letters can be considered as toys and now they come in foam, stickers, wood, plastic and other materials as well as carved onto wooden blocks and with magnets on the back. Simply playing with letters before starting kindergarten helps children feel more comfortable with them and creates a positive foundation for later learning.
There is nothing simple about play. This is one of the best ways for children to learn. Some ways that kids can play with letters are to spread them all out, sort them into colors, line them up, pile them into towers, make pretend alphabet soup, stick them onto papers, and even give them a bath. As children play with them, they will build up pictures in their mind of the letters so they do not seem like such strange marks when it comes to learning their names and printing them. Memorizing the way the lines and bumps look for each letter is a huge task and lots of experiences playing with them hands-on and seeing them over and over is as valuable as treasure.
Just as a pirate builds up a whole trunkful of treasure by depositing them one at a time, so do kids store up a ‘brainful’ of familiarity with letters each time they play with them. As they play, we can name some of the letters and ask kids if there are any letters that look almost the same. Which ones are pointy or round? Are there some that are just lines? Which ones have straight lines? Are there any zigzag or curvy ones? A few comments here and there are like polishing the treasure of learning. Can you help your child amass a brain treasure of letter play fun and learning?