Are you teaching the alphabet to your toddler? Check out these fun letter A activities for 2-year-olds!
(This post contains affiliate links.)
Shortly after she turned two, I began a Letter of the Week series with my younger daughter. After seeing her big sister and three older brothers do activities at the kitchen table, she was ready for her turn!
I started with A, but not because it’s the first letter of the alphabet. I began with all the letters in her name before we moved on to the rest of the letters.
For her birthday, I’d given my toddler her own set of alphabet books. I printed the books, stapled them, and store them in a little tin lunchbox. She calls these her “ootcase books” and asks me to read them often! (Print letter A for free here.)
I decided to mix letter recognition with something she enjoys – sensory play. I printed a set of bright letters (get them at the end of the post) and buried them in a bin of colored beans. She and my Four had fun digging around. As they played, I talked about the letters. “Did you find an A? Look! An A!”
Since this was our first alphabet activity, my Two didn’t have a concept of letters. She just enjoyed digging around in the dried beans and finding the cards. But you have to start somewhere, right?
At the end of this post you’ll also find letter A pictures in the download. I printed a double set and helped my Two find matches. For the easier pictures, I asked her to find them. “Where is the apple? Can you find the alligator?” The rest were good for building vocabulary. (P.S. I changed the cards a bit, so they’re not exactly what you see pictured.)
Since she likes putting small things into containers, I cut a slit in the top of a yogurt container so my Two could drop the cards inside. I talked about the pictures as she worked.
I like this craft because most toddlers enjoy sticking paper onto paper. My Two enjoyed helping me with the glue stick and pressing down pre-cut squares to make this apple.
Of course we couldn’t forget the classic apple printing activity. If you try this, be sure to put a fork in the apple so it’s easy to work with. In the past, my kids have gotten very frustrated about working with a slippery apple. But this apple printing was a success!
I wanted to help my Two become familiar with the shape of letter A, so I printed a block letter (get yours here) and gave her some alphabet stickers to stick inside it.
These alphabet play dough stampers were a bit pricy just for home use, but we love them! I’d definitely consider them if you teach a large group. You’ll get a lot of use out of them!
I wrote the letter “A” on sticky notes and hid them around the room (in obvious places). My Two enjoyed collecting them and sticking them to the door. I decided early in the week that we’d focus just on capital A, since she didn’t show a quick ability to remember either the upper or lowercase letter.
Later in the week I pulled out two printables from This Reading Mama’s Learning the Alphabet. She enjoyed using Do-a-Dot markers to (sort of!) fill in the circles.
We did this one too, even though I didn’t focus on lowercase a this week.
My Two doesn’t watch much TV, but she really enjoyed the letter A song from this Heidisongs DVD (we’re huge fans!). In fact, she learned the sound of letter A very quickly from the letter A song – and didn’t forget it!
You can grab your printable letter A cards and photos by clicking on the link below. And stay tuned for lots more alphabet learning in the coming months!
Looking for TONS of alphabet ideas? We recommend this!
© 2016, Anna G. All rights reserved.
Danielle says
Great Activities!
Anna Geiger says
Thanks so much, Danielle!
j says
Like the size of these picture cards. 🙂
Anna Geiger says
I hope you’re able to use them!
amanda says
do you have the rest of the alphbets? i just love your idea of diging hem out of beans
Anna Geiger says
I’m just releasing them one at a time over the next 6 months, although when I have all the sets finished (in a few weeks) I will offer them bundled for sale for people who don’t want to wait to get them individually as freebies.
Anna Geiger says
I just resent it to the email address you used when you placed your order: danyblanca@att.net
Do you see it there?
j says
another comment about the smaller sized ABC pictures: I have several ABC picture sets which I use for all kinds of activities from sorting and clasifying to alphbetizing and various phoneme sorts. In addition to hepling homeschooling parents,I’m in an afterschool program with multiage groups and the older kids sometimes like to “explore” what the younger kids are doing. So I try to use the same material to provide appropriate activities for both. I like the 3×4 picture pages for two reasons. first it saves paper and storage space, and, 2nd the smaller size keeps everyone exersizing those small muscles! 🙂
Anna Geiger says
I hadn’t thought about those benefits to using small cards – thanks for sharing!
Muni says
Your ideas are amazing!!
Anna Geiger says
Thank you, Muni! 🙂
Kelly says
These are great! Would you say that your daughter was able to recognize the letter by the end of the week? I’m definitely going to start this with our 2 yr old. She can sing the abc’s but doesn’t recognize the graphic letters yet.
Anna Geiger says
Not at first, Kelly, I think she was closer to 2 1/2 when the letters started “clicking.” Before that it was just a lot of playfulness in getting her exposed to the letters. But once she started remembering them, she started learning them before we “studied” them.
Antionette says
Love the “Aa” booklet & pictures.
Anna G says
I’m glad my resources are working for you, Antionette!
Ángela Sanchez says
These are awesome!! Thanks!!!
Anna G says
You’re very welcome, Angela!
Marsh says
I love these ideas! I am gonna try hiding the letter around the room. I bet my kids are gonna love that! Thank you.
Anna G says
It’s a fun activity – I hope they enjoy it! 🙂
Thao says
I love the printable letter cards. Thank you very much. So that my kid can recognize the words too, I add in name of the objects as well.
Anna G says
You’re very welcome, Thao!