ABC Activity Book
What is the ABC Activity Book?
The ABC Activity Book is a digital book for purchase in which you and your child can go through the entire alphabet together. I made this book for my older daughter when she was three and we went through one letter a week. Every letter has a minimum of seven items, with at least one animal and food per letter. There are links to videos to show an activity that promotes a fine and gross motor skill that starts with the letter being taught. In other words, there are a total of 52 videos: 26 fine motor inspired videos, and 26 gross motor inspired videos.
Developmental Skills Targeted:
This ABC Activity Book not only teaches the alphabet, it also encourages speech and language, and fine and gross motor skills. All of these skills take a lot of practice so the earlier you start to encourage your child to work on them, the better. Practice makes perfect!
Fine Motor Skills:
Fine motor skills are important for your child to learn independence in both self-care and in play. Getting dressed, brushing teeth, going to the bathroom, and eating are all examples of self-care that require practice and skill. Strength and coordination of these small finger movements takes time and lots of practice. Stringing beads, cutting, coloring, playing with Legos, squeezing a bottle of glue, and puzzles are all examples of play that encourage fine motor skills. Mastering difficult skills for little ones such as using a fork to poke food, or pulling up their pants, gives them a sense of accomplishment and improves their self-esteem. This ABC book gives your child the opportunity to engage in multiple fine motor activities that start with each letter of the alphabet.
Gross Motor Skills:
Gross motor skills are important for your child to learn how to move freely in the space around him or her and prepare him or her for more complicated movements such as crawling, walking, running, jumping, swimming, and eventually playing sports. Just as practice improves strength and coordination in fine motor skills, it also is important for gross motor skills. A great place to work on gross motor skills is at a playground. This ABC book gives your child the opportunity to engage in multiple gross motor activities that start with each letter of the alphabet.
Speech:
Speech is the physical production of verbal communication. Giving your child the opportunity to express oneself promotes decreased frustration when trying to say something, and improves confidence. This ABC book gives your child the opportunity to practice sounding out each letter of the alphabet and then matching it to the picture (phonology and articulation). Phonology are the rules, or phonics, behind how speech sounds are made. Articulation is the pronunciation of speech sounds.
Language:
Language is the ability to express oneself through verbal/nonverbal communication, and to understand what another person is saying. The more exposure to language and speech your child gets at an early age, the more likely he or she is to comprehend what you are telling him or her and then verbalize. This ABC book provides the opportunity to hear you name the pictures, learn what each one is, and then copy what you said (expressive vocabulary).
Developmental Skills Targeted Continued:
- Cognitive Development: sustained attention, information processing, cognitive flexibility and control, working memory, category formation
- Social and Emotional Development: expressing feelings with words, listening and paying attention, taking pride in accomplishments, turn taking, developing positive self-image
- Sensory Integration: tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive
- Motor planning and Coordination, crossing midline
- Speech and Language Development: expressive and receptive language, following directions
- Fine motor skills: academic skills- pencil skills (scribbling, coloring, drawing, writing, gluing), scissor skills, play skills, bilateral hand integration
- Gross motor skills: locomotor skills (running, jumping, crawling, kicking, throwing, catching, etc.)
- Vision: visual discrimination, visual closure, visual figure ground, visual scanning
Ideas of what to read:
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Ages 1-3:
- Sing the Alphabet by Calis Books
- ABC & 123 Learning Songs: Interactive Children’s Sound Book by Scarlett Wing
- See, Touch, Feel ABC Board Book by Roger Priddy
- My First Padded Book of Alphabet by Wonder House Books
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s ABC by Eric Carle
- Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! by Dr. Seuss
- ABC’s for Boys by Michael Kracht
- Animal ABC by Wonder House Books
Ages 2-6:
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
- ABCs of Kindness by Samantha Berger
- A is for Apple by Tiger Tales
- Noisy Animal ABC by Frances Mackay
- AlphaOops!: The Day Z Went First by Alethea Kontis
- ABC Dinosaurs in Space by Sebastiano Press