Step-by-Step: Making a Simple ABC Matching Game

I got a great idea from my friend, Nekey about making a game to match upper- and lowercase letters. I made one for Nim this week, so it will be ready to go when we resume school next week. It's so simple. All you need are: clothes pins, a cardboard box such as a shoe box (I used the lid to box of copy paper) and a fine-tip marker (I tried a Sharpie, but it bled; Nekey glued the letters on).

Step 1: Write or glue the lowercase letters onto wooden clothes pin (the pinch kind), one letter on each clothes pin. I wrote them near the bottom so that they can be easily seen while the child is holding the clothes pin.

Step 2: Write the uppercase letters, making sure to leave enough space between them to clip the clothes pins, around the box. I wrote them on the inside since there was writing around the outside of the box that I thought might be confusing. It might be easier to see the letters if they were on the outside, but this seemed to work okay.

That's it! Now, the child can just clip the clothes pin on the corresponding letter on the box. One really great thing about this is that the often-confusing letters, such as b, d, p, and q can only go one way, so the game may help reduce letter reversals later on.

Thanks, Nekey, for the great idea!