Feature Friday- One Sharp Bunch

I am so excited to introduce one of my FAVORITE Bloggers! I was so excited when I saw she signed up this week. The amazing Ashley from One Sharp Bunch is sharing some great, hands on ideas for Letter Boxes. LOVE IT!


Hi, friends!  Ashley here from One Sharp Bunch.  Thank you to the Kinder Tribe blog for letting me take over their blog on this Feature Friday!  Today, I'm here to bring you an at-home connection for letter and sound identification.

One of the things I like to do to help foster letter and sound identification at home is to send home a "Letter/Sound Box."  This is just a plastic shoe box, in which I place a short note about the purpose of the box.  On this note, I write a focus letter, blend, or digraph.  The student and his/her parents search the house for items that begin with that sound.  After finding 3-5 items, he/she places them inside the "Letter/Sound Box" and brings it back to school to share with his/her classmates.  This particular student brought in some great real-life examples for the letter C... so much more meaningful than picture cards!

In the beginning of the year, we focus on beginning sounds.  We also clap out the number of syllables for each word.  I always introduce the "Letter/Sound Box" by sharing my ideas for the letter A... not because I introduce the letters in alphabetical order, but mostly because these are the items I have on hand in my classroom.  I use Recipe for Reading and begin with the letter Cc.  That's because Cc is MAGIC!  Click here to read more about Magic C and check out our Magic C craft!

Once the student brings the "Letter/Sound Box" back to school, I have that student share the items with the class.  We repeat the name of each item, making sure to isolate the beginning sound (/c/ /c/ /c/ cracker).  Then, we try to guess what letter, blend, or digraph the student was assigned.  Normally, I keep these items at school for a few days as we explore that particular letter and sound.  Here, we see some very clever choices for the letter O.  I love that this student chose to bring in items beginning with both the short (otter and owl) and long (orange and Oreo) sound!

If you'd like to give the "Letter/Sound Box" a try in your classroom, click on the image below to download the FREE labels and notes!

I hope you find this at-home connection an engaging way to help encourage letter/sound recognition!

Happy letter/sound exploration, and thank you again to the Kinder Tribe blog!