Moveable Alphabet

I really like the Montessori "movable" alphabet. I refuse to use that spelling, but the concept is solid. These are giant wooden letters which are color coded (blue vowels and red consonants) and used on a mat to let the student begin working with CVC words even before they're capable of writing. They're also pretty fucking expensive. Here's the "small" version on Amazon.

And it's only $59.99!!!

This would be great for The Spawn right now. He's beginning to read. He knows all of his letter sounds and enjoys trying to spell. He writes well but I like to give him a lot of variety when it comes to learning. Enter the moveable alphabet. But since I have such a long Amazon list for this school year, I try to trim the fat wherever possible. Gotta fund the next Disney vacation somehow, eh?

So I spent yesterday evening working on my own version for use with our felt board. Even better, I had all of the supplies on hand already so no need to scavenge for change in the depths of the couch.

I create The Spawn's school materials using fonts from Educational Fontware which includes 33 of the most popular manuscript and cursive font families. A Teacher Pack license is available for $49.95 (academic use only). There are also openware fonts available on sites like dafont.com if you're looking for free font options.

I opened up Publisher and created a document with the alphabet, punctuation, and numbers 0-9 in the manuscript font that I use for all of his alphabet work. I color coded the letters like the Montessori movable alphabet and printed copies on cardstock.

Decorative printer art by The Spawn.

Trimming and laminating came next.

And more trimming...

Finally I had all of them finished. I printed 4 of each consonant and 10 of each vowel in addition to the punctuation and numbers. Then I cut out 154 felt rectangles and glued one onto the back of each laminated tile.

I also put together a tabletop felt board out of an extra 8x10 frame I had lying around for The Spawn to use at his desk.

Success! He loved his new letters.

I'll link any future activities that I come up with to use with the moveable alphabet.

F is for Felt Board.

Way back in the day I had an unconventional 3rd grade teacher. She was Swedish and liked to make giant block mazes for our class gerbil. She sang a lot and taught us about Santa Lucia and rewarded us for good behavior by letting us select a special treat from her Special Treat Cupboard each Friday. Treat options included real licorice (ick) but also very cool trinkets and toys. Or you could do what I always did and opt for a slab of clay. She'd pull down a giant block of clay wrapped in plastic and use one of those cool wire clay cutting thingies and slice off a chunk. It was great.

She also had a felt board. For those of you who are sadly unfamiliar with the felt board, it is literally a giant board with a piece of felt glued to the front. Sounds like one of those fun "creative toys" that your parents try to fob off on you during especially lean years, right?

"That's not just a stick, Suzy. It's an ULTRA SPECIAL MAGICAL STICK!"

But, I assure you, a felt board can be so much more. I have fantastic memories of creating my own versions of familiar stories with the felt board. It's like storyboarding an animated film without all of that pesky drawing. I've collected a lot of felt board patterns over the years to use with my very own offspring.

Then last week we were visiting my favorite creative reuse store and came across this jackpot:

I cannot stress how much The Spawn is into Thomas right now. He wakes up each morning ready for Thomas in any form that he can get him... shooting, snorting, makes no difference as long as he gets his fix. So I knew this would be a hit. The only problem: many, many pieces... tiny, tiny felt board.

I went in search of felt board making supplies and came back with this:

 

I picked up the poster frame from Cheapo Depot (aka Walmart) and already had the ModPodge, foam brush, and scissors. I didn't get the cheapest poster frame as I wanted a single piece for the actual frame and the el cheapo model is four little plastic edge pieces instead of a solid frame. I got the felt (1 yard though you could certainly use 1/2 with this frame size) from JoAnn's with a coupon. I also picked up a lot of felt rectangles while I was there as I had a 6/$1 coupon.

Putting it together was a snap.

1. I removed the cardboard backing form the frame and used it as a cutting guide for my felt.

2. I used my foam brush to glue down the felt.

 

 3. I removed the plastic from the frame (this was surprisingly glued in). I then inserted the felt and folded down the tabs. Et voilà!

 

As suspected, the felt board and Thomas set have absorbed The Spawn for a solid two hours. Mommy got a nap. Boom, baby!