Multi-Sensory Letter Learning with ABC Twiggles {A Back to School Review}

I always love finding new ways to teach the children their letters. When I started this blog 5 years ago, I was doing my own version of Letter of the Week with Tabitha while Amelia joined in occasionally. I already had plans this year to do Letter of the Week with Hannah and Harold. I just wasn't sure of the details. Then I discovered KidsSoup and their site, ABC Twiggles. I will be sharing more about KidsSoup in a couple of months when they are finished with their site updates. For now, I would like to share their fun site, ABC Twiggles. 

ABC Twiggles is an Multi-Sensory ABC Letters Preschool Curriculum.

This multi-sensory approach is very important for the development of children. As you can see above, children will get exposed to letters in these different contexts: Auditory (hearing the letter), Tactile (feeling the letter), Tasting (tasting the letter), Visual (seeing the letter), and Kinesthetic (writing the letter).  According to the website, "multiple pathways are formed for enhancing children’s retention of the names of the letters and their most common sounds. This multi-sensory approach incorporates activities that directly stimulate the five senses with exercises in dramatic play, art, movement, music, cooking, and literature exploration."

There is just so much on this site. Here, let's take a look.

After choosing the letter you would like to work on, you have many options. The child can get on the computer to listen to the online story (each letter has 2 books) and play a letter finding game. They can choose to have the story read to them or read it themselves. Even if they choose the "Read the Story" option, they can still click on each word to have it read to them if they need some help.

There are many different printables. There are flash cards in black & white or color, posters in black & white or color, phonemic awareness worksheets, coloring pages, letter fun pages for letter recognition, word cards, and letter matching for children to match upper case and lower case. Additionally, a child will hear a chant to help learn the sound associated with the letter while also learning the sign language sign for the letter.  There is a tongue twister poster featuring words that start with the sound, the sign for the letter and some pictures illustrating the tongue twister. The last section, "Feel the Letter" leads to resources for tactile activities for the letter.  There are also patterns for making letter people puppets.

Further down the page you will find even more activities. There are several different levels of handwriting practice, from larger pre-writing pages to help the child learn the shape of the letter, to medium size tracing letter pages, and finally printing pages in Block and D'Nealian. Children will go from writing the letter to writing words. You can print out color or black & white versions of the online letter book, plus a color version of the online storybook. There is also a folder game that would need printed out and instruction for a letter craft. The "Letter Themes A" section will take you to related activities on the KidsSoup site. There is a banner to print out, in either black & white or color. Then there are ideas for recipes/snacks to taste the letter, idea for games/activities to get up and move, and books for literacy.

How did we use ABC Twiggles?

First, I wanted to explain that I didn't want to go too far into the program because we will be starting school up on August 25th and I will be doing this curriculum with them in full.

Hannah's favorite thing to do is listen to the online books and play the letter finding game. These are cute animated stories. As the words are spoken or clicked on, they will be highlighted in yellow. If you choose to read the story, you have the option of taking a quiz on each page. This quiz is to find the letter and click on it. Hannah really enjoys watching this over and over.

I printed out some coloring sheets, letter recognition activity sheets for Hannah, the phonemic activity worksheet and the simple tracing worksheet.

They had fun coloring the letter page.

Harold was learning some new words. 

They made a A alligator as well.

I decided the matching letters would make a great Learning Tray activity.

I absolutely love that there are recipe suggestions and instructions to go with each letter. I know what we will be doing for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen this year! For "A" we made Applesauce Delight. Yum.

I feel I can truly make Hannah and Harold's Letter of the Week from this curriculum. There was a time when I was all for making my own crafts and activities. That was when it was just two children who I needed to prepare for. Now that the older two girls are in first and second grade, I have a lot more preparation to do for them, leaving me less time to focus on the younger children. All I have to do is print out the pages, cut out the necessary elements and glue or laminate if needed. Yes, there is still prep time, but I don't have to be wracking my brain for ideas. They are neatly laid out for me. 

An ABC Twiggles annual membership can be purchased for $21.99. If you are a KidsSoup member, they are offering a 30% discount on ABC Twiggles.

 You can more about ABC Twiggles at their site, and get a full free preview of the Letter A materials, plus a free Alphabet Chart Placemat.

You can also find KidsSoup on Facebook.

The generous folks over at ABC Twiggles have given me permission to give away a year's subscription. It will be included in the Grand Prize Giveaway.

Don't miss out on the Grand Prize Giveaway!
Click here to enter the giveaway.

How would you like some extra entries into this giveaway before it even starts? 

Head on over to the website and tell me something you learned about their approach. Leave the answer here in the comments with your email and when the giveaway is live I will email you the secret code to place in the Rafflecopter for a bonus 10 points. 

Don't miss out on the Grand Prize Giveaway!
Click here to enter the giveaway.