Playschools are increasingly embracing teaching methods in form of games and activities that engage a child’s mind, create learning experiences and have fun along the way too. Here are some innovative learning activities for kids to help learn the alphabets and numbers.

Magic Letters: In this activity a white crayon or an oil pastel can be used to write a few letters on a white paper, in advance. Then the children are asked to paint the entire sheet with 1 water/poster colour of their liking. On painting the sheet, the letters written with the crayon will start becoming visible like an invisible ink coming to life. The children’s eyes twinkle with excitement as they notice, read and shout the letters they recognize, coming to life.

Squirt the letter: Here letters are written in a random order all over the blackboard with chalk. Children are called one by one to have a shot at identifying the called out letter, on the blackboard and squirting it with water with a water spray bottle, so the letter is washed away. The activity is carried on till all the children have their shot at the alphabets and till all the alphabets on the board are washed away. The same activity can be done with numbers as well. 

Sand Art for Alphabets: In this activity, an alphabet is written on a chart paper or cardboard. Glue or fevicol is then applied with the finger or a brush over the alphabet. And then sand is sprayed all over the paper. The sand sticks only to the outline of the alphabet that is glued and stays there bringing front the alphabet on the paper. The same activity can be done with dhal, rice or corn.

Connecting the Dots: Dots are drawn on the blackboard with simple or random shapes. From 4 dots forming a square to 8 dots forming an octagon. Each dot is numbered and the children are called one by one to draw lines by joining the dots with the chalk to form shapes, in the order of the numbers. Example: Connecting 1 with 2, 2 with 3, 3 with 4 and 4 with 1 to form a square. 

Counting things around the School: Children are asked to count things around the Playschool. For example: The number of doors in the room, the number of windows in the room, the number tables in the room, the number of chairs in the room, the number of students wearing a red t-shirt, the number of petals in a flower etc.

Counting with lego or large buttons: On a white sheet of paper, horizontal lines are drawn with a ruler and the numbers are written in an increasing order in each section and handed out to the kids, along with lego pieces or large colorful buttons. The children are asked to put the corresponding number of pieces as the number in each horizontal section.