All aboard the Alphabet Train! Choo! Choo!

Here’s a cute letter matching game for train-obsessed toddlers like my son Calvin.

Calvin is my 22cutie and I am working with him on letter recognition. He is about to be 4 years old, and I’m feeling a teensy bit concerned that he won’t know all his letters when he starts pre-k… I don’t want to stress him out over it, but we are doing letter-of-the week again along with some letter matching practice like this. I’m trying to make it as fun as possible. Play to learn!

This activity was fun to set up and fun to play! You need a train track and preferably some train cars that will carry cargo, and two sets of letters: these could be blocks, magnets, puzzle pieces, or even just slips of paper. We used a set of alphabet blocks and a set of alphabet magnets.

Calvin and I worked together to build a simple oval train track around our train table. Then He helped me arrange the “Letter Stations” around the track while we sang our ABC’s.

Then we played our matching game. We called it “Letter Delivery!” I had the stash of alphabet magnets, and I loaded up the train’s cargo cars with 6 letter magnets to be delivered. Then Calvin’s job was to drive the train around the table and deliver each magnet to the matching Letter Station. The difference in fonts did trip him up a little bit, so we talked about how letters can be printed a little differently.

It wasn’t an easy activity for Calvin, but he likes driving his little train around the track so he stuck with it. I don’t think we got all 26 letters delivered in that one game, but we got maybe 18 or so before he was spent. He mostly enjoyed driving the train around while singing the ABC song 🙂

Got any alphabet practice activities to recommend?

22q parents – did your kids have trouble with learning their letters? One thing that is making it difficult is that with his articulation problems, he can’t even really say all the letter names. I think he can learn them even if it’s hard to understand him, but it makes it confusing. Anyone have advice about this problem?