Mr Men School: Making an Alphabet Tool Box

Last week I made an A, B, C box for my little girls, who have been using it all week long.  It is deceptively simple and is teaching them in a way that is fun.  A5 in particular has loved using it

The box was made just like my numbers box, with an icecream tub, a magnetic board glued on top and decorated with foam at the sides
The box was made just like my numbers box, with an ice cream tub, a magnetic board glued on top and decorated with foam at the sides

I’ll probably add to it, but so far it has some alphabet stamps, pen, magnetic letters, lettered pegs and spelling cards:

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The stamps can be printed onto the magnetic white board and wiped off easily with a cloth.  This will be fun letter recognition for B2 with some reading and spelling practice for A5:

I just used some Jolly Phonics letter stampers
I just used some Jolly Phonics letter stampers

I included the pen for writing practice for A5.  Really the possibilities are endless from writing and copying words to writing the capital letter to small letters I have written, or visa versa:

Here I wrote the small letters and A5 found the corresponding magnetic letters
Here I wrote the small letters and A5 found the corresponding magnetic letters

I stuck small foam letters to one side of a peg and the corresponding capital to the other side.  This meant the girls would have both capital and small letters to choose from thus introducing the idea of capitalisation:DSC_13My plan for these was to use them on name strips of the characters we have studied in our Mr Men homeschool:

These strips will grow larger in number as we learn about more of the characters. This will show the children capitalisation of a name as well as give them many adjectives to add to their vocab with very little effort from me.
These strips will grow larger in number as we learn about more of the characters. This will show the children capitalisation of a name as well as give them many adjectives to add to their vocab with very little effort from me.

These boxes have been such a big hit with my girls, especially A5, who asks to play with the Mr Tickle number box and Little Miss Bossy letter box every day.  You hear that word?  Play – that’s what she thinks she’s doing.  My heart is all light and fluffy!