Tippity Witchet and her sister Frogwart are making an alphabet scrapbook together. Tippity has found a page about apples with a very nice A on it.

An alphabet scrap book is easy to make with a loose-leaf binder, a few blank sheets of paper and some tape or paste. As you and your child find various examples of a letter, put it in your scrapbook. Handling the letters and talking about them aids the learning process.

If you want a fancy looking scrapbook, buy a binder with a clear pocket on the cover so you can slip a Fun With Letters title page inside. Click here to view a color title page you can print with the Alphabet Soup Cafe on it and a place for your child's name. (To print this page without the page title, date and other information appearing on the page, change your browser's Page Attributes settings under Page Set Up). You could even buy a set of alphabetical tab dividers to organize your scrapbook.

Alphabet Scrapbook Tips

• You'll be able to find all the letters of the alphabet around the house, but take the search outside, too. The alphabet is at work on buildings, signs and passing vehicles.
• If a letter is too big or is otherwise impractical to cut out, draw it. Even better, encourage your child to draw it if he's developing the skill to do so.
• You could take photographs of interesting letters on signs or buildings.
• You could choose to put whole words in your scrapbook. Doing so would show the selected letter at work and build awareness of how words are made.
• Always supervise your child's search for letters. You don't want to find a hole in your box of cereal or pages missing from a favorite novel.
• Define the limits of your child's searches. Keep children away from everything that might be hazardous to their health or simply off limits.
• Remember that this is a learning game, not work. Make the search a bit of a challenging puzzle or adventure, stop when your child gets tired, and play again another day.

Realistic Epectations

No single activity will teach your children to read and write, but this one helps in several ways. Fun with Letters encourages them to:

• Recognize letters in their "natural environment" (as parts of words).
• Recognize letters despite the use of different typefaces (not easy at first).
• Spend time discussing individual letters with you.
• Practice drawing the letters.
• Learn the different sounds a letter can make.