Race Day

Introduction

Have a day of reading-games with your child to practice letter recognition, letter sounds and spelling!

Materials:

• 16 pieces of blank white paper
• Magic Marker
• Contact paper
• Masking tape or Carpet tape

Directions:

• Letter Twist!
• Have your child write one capital letter (include the letters from the episode, G, O, B, E, L) on each piece of paper, large enough to fill the entire page.
• For pre-writers, write an outline of the letter for them to trace or write and then ask them to identify the letter.
• If available, cover each letter with contact paper or laminate each sheet. Place masking or carpet tape on the back of each letter. Spread the letters out in four rows of four letters to make a square of letters.
• Call out the directions below to your child. Like in Twister, have your child twist and turn to put their hands and feet on the correct letters!
• Easy: Call out which hand or foot your child should use along with what letter he needs to reach to. "Left Foot F"
• Medium: Call out which hand or foot your child should use along with the sound of the letter he needs to reach to. "Left Foot /f/(fff)"
• Difficult: For an even more difficult game, call out a 2-4 letter word (that you have enough letters on the floor for) and have your child put their hands and feet on all the letters in that word.
• For multiple players, take turns for an even sillier twist!

Take it further:

• Red light, Green light, ABC!
• Have your children lined up in the back of the room
• Have one child act as the caller, stand at the front of the room, facing away from the other children
• The caller should say Red Light Green Light Letter __
• Only the children with that letter in their name can take a step forward towards the caller
• First child to reach the caller wins!
• Practice Upper and Lower Case Letters! Write out 8 capital letters and the matching 8 lower case letters, one on each page. Lay them out as in Letter Twist!
• Easy: Call out which hand or foot your child should use along with what version of the letter he needs to reach to. "Left Foot lower-case F" or "Right Hand upper-case F"
• Difficult: Call out a letter and have your child put a hand on the capital version of that letter and a foot on the lower case version of the letter!
• Play a memory game with the letters. Lay out the letters as in Letter Twist! but this time face down. Have kids flip over two pieces of paper at a time to try to make an upper case-lower case match. If it's a mis-match, flip the pieces of paper back over and try again until your child has all four matches!

Talk about it:

• Talk to your child about if there was a time when they were upset about losing a game. How could they make sure that next time they still enjoy the game?
• For children who are not yet ready to play the medium or difficult levels, talk with them about what words start with the letters you just played with. See if you can come up with a list of five for each letter together.