Letter Hopscotch
Setup: Grab some chalk and find a piece of sidewalk or smooth pavement that you can draw on. Make a bunch of squares. Be sure to make the squares big enough so that you and your little one(s) can comfortably stand inside them with both feet.
You can draw the squares in the traditional “hopscotch pattern” where you alternate between single squares and paired squares with all of the squares being connected, or you can choose to draw the squares randomly in separate spots. Also, you don’t have to follow the rules of hopscotch for this activity, but you can choose to if you’d like, especially if your little one knows how to play hopscotch already.
Now in each square, draw either a part of a book, a letter, a number, or a picture of a person/place/object. For example, you may have 4 squares with different book parts including a drawing of the side of a book, a drawing of the front of a book, a drawing of the back of a book, and a drawing of the table of contents of a book. Additionally, you could also have a square for each of the following characters: “A,” “b,” “4,” “9.” Then, you can have a picture of a snowman, a car, and a house in the last few squares.
Try to choose a good mix of drawings that your little one(s) will be able to easily identify and some that they’re unfamiliar with, so that they feel some level of challenge and have some room to learn during the activity, but don’t feel like there is too much of a challenge.
Activity: Once you have all of the squares ready with something drawn inside of them. Ask your little one to randomly pick a square and jump on it. Then, ask them what is inside the square that they jumped on. You can also take turns jumping on squares with your child(ren), and announcing yourself what is inside the square you landed on. Repeat this process for all of the squares. You can even go through all of the squares multiple times to give your little one(s) more chances to absorb the new information.