Project Based (Initial-letter) Alphabet Learning

Project based learning is presented, by both Montessori and Reggio Amelia philosophy, as the ultimate approach to formal learning. The ideas described in this section are presented to inspire and encourage a project style of learning related to the twenty six individual alphabet letter shapes and their associated phonic sounds.
We tend to associate phonic letter sounds with individual letters; however, the project base style of learning offers a broad spectrum of real life experience and associated interest and understanding. The traditional picture alphabet,a for apple, b for boat etc. is rather static and unrelated to the wider aspects of language and active living and doing experience. An enriched experience can offer a learner a wealth of choice as to what key word might be used to physically anchor the visual letter with one or more appropriate phonic letter sounds.
A project based approach to learning inevitably provides a wide spectrum of sensory experiences to suit different learning styles, strengths and interests. It also incorporates many different opportunities to engage in creative activity, language enrichment and a comprehensive spectrum of knowledge and understanding. However, new learning does need to be presented in a conceptually correct structure or mind map of basic information and guided structures of step by step approaches to learning. Therefore a project based approach to learning is one that needs to avoid overwhelming the learner with too much information and new experience. A successful project approach will intrinsically involve linking new learning and new experience to that of previously established areas of thinking, learning and understanding. Thus, successful project learning themes need to accommodate the following:
 Present key information in a simple and easily repeated format.
 Link new information to point of interest through multi-sensory experience.
 Integrate new learning with previous areas of competence, knowledge and understanding.
 Add aspects of creative endeavour to enhance the way the learner can personalise the new learning and accommodate the information through their own sense of exploration and discovery.
 Allow for areas of enhancement that can embrace each individual learner’s sense of curiosity and expansion into new areas of discovery learning.

Art and craft activities: draw ‘An Amazing Army of Ants’.Make paper aeroplanes and/or arrows. Aiming arrows or paper aeroplanes or apples through an arch.
Make a wall picture for the title All the Animals are in the Arc find out about animals that have names beginning with ‘a’ and hide them in the picture: ants, anteater, antelope, adder, armadilo. ‘Angels are adorable’ Make pictures and stories

Nature Adventures: Apple bobbing (eating an apple that is hanging on a string without using your hands.Apple picking. ‘Acorns are amazing’ – collecting acorns, growing acorns. Build/visit an adventure play area. Ant activities are always amusing. Preferably locate an active and adventurous ant colony, then choose places to leave a few sticky sweets in the garden to attract the ants. Build ant activities for the ants along their trail from their home to the sweets and observe the ants’ actions.
Grow Aloe Vera plants and use some of the inner gel to make hand lotion or sooth stinging nettle stings.

* Story with visual props- an apple without a stalk and an arrow that can stand up vertically beside the apple at roughly the same height. Place the apple so that it leans against the arrow…….One day the ants in the garden found a large round object that smelt sweet and good enough to eat. First they crawled up the side and all the way to the top but they could not go any further so they went all the way back and on around the bottom and on up the other side. At the top they were feeling rather tired, luckily this lovely round and sooth apple was leaning against an arrow, so one young adventurous ant stepped onto the top of the arrow then slid all the way back down to safety on the ground again. Seeing this was a fast and very easy way to get down all the other ants followed the arrow and returned to the ground. (This ant story verbally and visually describes the path of the pencil when writing a cursive a.)

This file presents a collection of notes composed at different times by the author as part of her lesson preparation and planning. The charts at the end were developed progressively as a general background for consideration. They illustrate how different alphabetical themes could have developed and thereby presented possible areas of study. These notes describe activities and topics of interest,that could be incorporated within a focused day or project of learning activity, associated with each letter of the alphabet. The author proposes that the letters are introduced one at a time in alphabetical order.Thus preceding letters and revision of their alphabetical order can be revised as each new letter is introduced:-
The ideas are not presented as any sort of curriculum. The following ideas are simply a practical example of how a structured curriculum of sequenced activities may encourage an integrated step by step approach to learning foundations for literacy.Any area of interest can become the centre focus of a mind-map of associated areas of exploration and study. The presentation offers ideas as to how we can use backup resources to support the development ofrich environmental experiences that encourage creative interaction within a specific conceptual focus and related multisensory integration. The ideas are not specifically age related and therefore can be adjusted to suit different levels of age, interest and ability.

Introducing the phonic sounds
Initial letter sounds (naming words – nouns preceded by an A) :-
Long vowel sound – a : apron, acorn, ace, apricot, angel, age, ape.
Short vowel sound – a : apple, acrobat, ankle, attic, alfalfa, ant, alligator, arrow, axe, astronaut,alphabet, angle, amethyst (crystal), aniseed (seeds of the anise), asparagus,add, adventure,.
New vowel sounds: al = always,
a(r) with the ‘r’ = its consonant sound r for rabbit. As in art, archery, arm, arch, arc, argue, armadillo, aeroplane, air
or without the r : almond,aunt, afternoon, bath.

A day focused upon the letter A could include:-
Making arrows out of paper or card or sticks; e.g. fold a square or rectangular piece of paper in half then mark and cut as shown:
Construct an arch with the arrows.
Draw an arch of arrows.

Make a capital A shape with arrows. Draw a capital A with arrows/lines.

Have apple bobbing games( a challenging snack of apples) Try to collect an apple that is floating in a bowl of water without using ones hands!? or eat an apple that is hung on a string from the top of a doorway, branch or archway, without using ones hands!?

Introduce Annie Apple of the letter land people and tell a short story about Annie apple and her angel using objects/pictures of the items starting with A.
One autumn afternoon Annie apple goes out with her axe. She went all around the apple trees then across the bridge and along the stream. Then she accidently slipped and fell. When Annie she tried to get up her ankleached and she couldn’t even stand.Annie was all alone and she was anxious about how she would get home. So she called to her guardian angel and awaited an answer. As Annie waited for help,she watched an army of ants marching all around and about amongst the autumn leaves. After a while she hears someone coming, at last she says. It is Aunt Amy with a bag of almonds for Annie. Aunt Amy said she should have brought an aeroplane because carrying Annie Apple and her axe made her arms ache. Annie apple said she would like to learn acrobatic skills and Aunt Amy said that Annie Apple would be very good at rolling about.

Have asparagus soup and brown bread and butter sprinkled with alfalfa. Have baked Apple desert stuffed with almonds and apricots with the option of aniseeds sprinkled on the top.
Go outside on an arrow adventure
Follow an arrow adventure trail to find the pot of dried apricots. Place capital and lowercase letters and/or apples near the trail so that they can be seen and found by those following the arrow adventure.
Find a real ant in the undergrowth collect it in a jar and observe it under a magnifying glass. Using plasticine or clay and sticks or pipe cleaners make model ants.

Explore how to write a lowercase letter aas described in the ant story * described at the bottom of the letter A chart above.
Using aesthetically pleasing craft materials draw and create/colour and decorate an angel.

Threading and Pattern making activities using black, blue and brown beads or buttons.
Blow up big blue balloons
Blow bubbles.
Bounce balls into a (blue, black or brown) bucket.
Use brown building bricks to design and create an outdoor sculpture.
Cook butter-biscuits.
Sentences for ‘Listen remember, repeat and read’.
The boys broke Ben’s bucket.
The big boys broke Ben’s bucket.

The big boys broke Ben’s bright blue bucket.
The big boys broke baby Ben’s bright blue bucket.

Baby birds have big beaks
Baby Black birds have big beaks.
Baby black birds have big bright beaks.
Then draw a picture to illustrate the sentence and stick a printed copy of the sentence onto the illustrative picture. The sentence can be altered to fit what is actually drawn in the picture. E.g. if the picture is a boy and a black bucket – the accompanying printed sentence would say ‘A boy and a black bucket.’

The phonic structure of the word Black includes the first three letters of the alphabet which have already been studied. The colour coded letters can therefore be presented for the entire word – blackfollowed by cfor coal.
The memory game can be played with items starting with c. E.g.I went shopping and I bought some coal. I went shopping and I bought some coal and a cup, etc.

The initial letter question game could be played for c as ….Can a cup contain a caterpillar? Yes a cup can contain a caterpillar. Can a cup contain a curtain? Yes a cup can contain a curtain.
Or …Can my coat cover a car? Yes your coat can cover a car! Can my coat cover a cat! Yes,your coat can cover a cat! Can my coat cover a flower? No, your coat cannot cover a flower! Etc.The ‘my’ and ‘your’ can be interchanged if preferred i.e. Can your coat cover a car!? Yes my coat can cover a car.
Can your cat catch a cucumber? Yes,your cat can catch a cucumber! Can your cat catch a mouse! No my cat cannot catch a mouse!  

By the time we get to study the initial letter W nearly all of the letters of the alphabet will have been already studied.Within the exceptionally broad topic of water there are plenty of opportunities to revise the other initial letter sounds. Living in Wales water is an ideal topic for W.It can have an especially adventurous and action fun perspective when related to the local geography as illustrated in the mind-map below:-