I bought a box of ping pong balls, which were relatively cheap. Using a Sharpie, I marked each of them with an alphabetical letter, then put them in a tub, along with a fish net.
The object is to scoop them up in the net in alphabetical order, and drop each ball into the egg carton in the slot with the corresponding letter. (Ex: I put upper case on the balls, and lower case in the cartons.) Note: They could not touch the ball with their fingers at any time. Net only!
What made this exciting for the children is they would time each other (using my timer) to see who could do it the fastest.
1. Go to the dollar store.
2. Buy enough of those fishing pole games for one center/station, and several sets of magnetic letters.
How to Play:
*Dump letters into a box or bin.
*Altogether, every child has to "fish" for letters.
*You set the rules. Such as, first child to spell a word with their letters wins! (note that all words must be CVC or at least 3 letters long - but you may start earlier in the year with 2-letter words such as at, me, my)
*Children can also practice "catching" the letters in their names
*To make it harder, have them draw a card with a word on it, and they must catch it
Note: To use this at the beginning of school, have them try to put the letters in alphabetical order. Ex: Someone has to catch the A, then someone has to catch the B. But they're all fishing at the same time!
