Elementary Literacy Activity
- Find shapes that resemble letters from outdoor materials – make sure to find the entire alphabet!
- How many words can you create in one minute? Ask 1 partner create the words with the materials and 1 partner write down the list of words. Swap! Compare the lists of words with the class: categorize common words, unique words, three letter words, five letter words, etc.
- If you can’t find materials in the shapes of letters, make your own out of sticks, pebbles, leaves, beach plastic, etc.
Variations on the challenge:
- Longest word: What is the longest word you can spell? What about the longest word you can spell using the most words from the alphabet only once? Fun fact: there are two 15-letter words that do not repeat a letter: “uncopyrightable” referring to something for which it is not possible to secure copyright, and “dermatoglyphics” meaning ‘the study of skin markings.’
- Create your own pangram: There are sentences in English in which all 26 letters occur at least once. That kind of sentence is called a pangram or holoalphabetic sentence. Example: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Can you create your own?
- Scrabble: Create a giant scrabble board! In an open space, ask one student to spell out a word. Have each student add a word onto the existing word, overlapping with 1 letter.
