The alphabet is an important milestone in a child’s learning development. It’s the basis for reading words, and later making sentences. It can catapult them towards another level of communication. They evolve from talking, to writing on the paper. It probably feels somewhat like cracking the code for them as they try to decode the lines and curves.

The truth is that letters are everywhere. When I was a kid, I learned the alphabet just by walking the streets. I always asked what I didn’t know from the posters and labels. My son also learned like that, except his interest was in licence plates. Usually kids learn upper-case letters first. Maybe because those are more memorizable? In turn we use the lower case letters much more.

If your kid knows the upper case alphabet, but the lower case not completely, then this idea is perfect for you. All you need for this fun kid’s activity project are paper plates: 26 pieces for the individual letters, and 2 more for the instruction plates.

What’s an instruction plate? It’s to help find the matching puzzle pieces, along with memorizing the upper and lower case letters. Write it around the plates, and glue the middle parts together. Make sure, that the letters are in the correct place. Then cut the paper through until the glued area. When you fold it at the end, then in half, it’ll stay in place.

It must be something interesting for kids to fold those small paper “ears”, almost like a Christmas calendar. Except, here there are no chocolates. Just this by itself can be a good way to learn the lower-case letters. But add fun to it with the puzzles.

I created a “system” where the consonants and vowels are different colors, and the lower and upper-case letters also slightly matched in color (orange – red / light blue – dark blue). If you want to make it easier, you can make it more colorful. This way, it’ll be simpler to match the broken puzzle pieces. Also, you can put a line or a dot on the bottom, to help her/him, giving them a clue about which way to look.

When you’re ready writing all the letters and prepping the pieces, get your scissors out. “Break” the plates by cutting them into two pieces. I also made the lines similar to the shapes and curves of the letters.

When you’re ready with this easy preparation, just mix the plate pieces together. Make it disordered and call your kids to help clean up the mess. If you’re looking at it from farther away, it really looks realistic. They can solve the puzzle, higgledy-piggledy, or in alphabetical order. If they get stuck somewhere, just let them check the instruction plate.

Also, you can add a story to it: there was a zoo keeper who was preparing for his/her birthday party. He/she wanted to put the monograms for all of his/hers friends. But they didn’t have that much time, so they skipped breakfast. They just wanted to be ready. There were 26 friends, and all of them were different animals:

• Albert, the alligator
• Ben, the bear
• Catarina, the cat
• Darsey, the deer
• Elsa, the elephant
• Frank, the fox
• Gilbert, the giraffe
• Hedvig, the hedgehog
• Ian, the iguana
• Jenny, the jellyfish
• Konnor, the koala
• Lionel, the lion
• Monica, the monkey
• Nancy, the nightingale
• Otto, the octopus
• Penny, the penguin
• Quinn, the quail
• Rita, the rabbit
• Samuel, the snail
• Tyrell, the tiger
• Ubul, the unicorn
• Vincent, the vulture
• Wanda, the whale
• Xenia, the x-ray fish
• Yara, the yak
• Zora, the zebra.

Once they finished writing all the letters, they wanted to bring all the plates at one time to the table. But because they didn’t eat breakfast, they didn’t have enough strength. So all the plates fell and broke into little pieces. Can you help the the zoo keeper out and put the plates together in the correct way?

Have fun!