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.
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!
Check out the rest of the series!
Check out our letter of the week curriculum!
Get your free letter and photo cards!
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Danielle
Great Activities!
Anna Geiger
Thanks so much, Danielle!
j
Like the size of these picture cards. 🙂
Anna Geiger
I hope you’re able to use them!
amanda
do you have the rest of the alphbets? i just love your idea of diging hem out of beans
Anna Geiger
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
I just resent it to the email address you used when you placed your order: danyblanca@att.net
Do you see it there?
j
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
I hadn’t thought about those benefits to using small cards – thanks for sharing!
Muni
Your ideas are amazing!!
Anna Geiger
Thank you, Muni! 🙂
Kelly
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
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
Love the “Aa” booklet & pictures.
Anna G
I’m glad my resources are working for you, Antionette!
Ángela Sanchez
These are awesome!! Thanks!!!
Anna G
You’re very welcome, Angela!
Marsh
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
It’s a fun activity – I hope they enjoy it! 🙂
Thao
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
You’re very welcome, Thao!
Neha
Hi ! These activities seem so fun . Just wanted to check do you recommend to teach uppercase letters to two years old or both ?
Thanks
Anna G
Personally I do uppercase with 2-year-olds because they’re easier to recognize and remember. We add lowercase when they’re 3 or 4 years old.
Kristen
Hello! Where did you find the colored beans at? I love these ideas! My little one is 16 months but I’m ready to start introducing her to these activities!
Anna G
Hi Kristen! I made them myself. I followed a tutorial something like this: https://www.funathomewithkids.com/2014/02/how-to-color-beans-for-play-and-art.html
Kristen
Thank you!
Anna G
I’m glad this helped you!
Layla B
I absolutely love all of these! I am currently using the cards and books with my son whom has yet to start talking (he is 2.5) we are not sure whats going on but he actually gets letters with these cards and books. Its amazing! We are working on signing with the letters which he is actually much better at then talking. Thanks so much for all of these amazing products! Much love!
Anna G
Yay – I’m so glad this has been helpful, Layla!
Mithila
Hi Anna
My son s 23 month old now. I want to start these alphabetical activity r these letters n. Ants to fill colors r available with you so tat I can order these for me
Kate Dowling
Hi Mithila!
This is Kate, Anna’s assistant. The ant page is not from this website. It’s from This Reading Mama’s Learning the Alphabet. The link is in the post above. Anna has dot pages available here: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/dot-sticker-pages/
Ileana
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this site! thank you SOOOOo much! seems fun from just the pictures!:)
Heather Groth, Customer Support
Thank you, Ilieana! We hope you enjoy the activities!