Last night, I discovered a wonderful flash game that let me get dinner cooked in relative peace while helping James learn his alphabet. It is called A B C D Watermelon, and it is perfect for a silly 2 or 3 year old! There’s a lion who sings the alphabet while the letters are added to the screen. Randomly, they replace a letter with a silly word and picture James laughs every time he hears A B C D E F Wiener Dog! The child then gets a choice of three letters at the bottom to replace the picture. When the child mouses over the letters, a voice says the name of each letter.
Things I especially like about it:
- It’s silly and has replay appeal. James wants to get the letter right so he can hear what other silly thing they’re going to insert into the alphabet.
- They alternate uppercase and lowercase
- Repetition:: Just yesterday, James sang the alphabet as “ABC XYZ Now you sing with me!” But after playing the game for about 10 minutes last night and this morning, he is hitting some of the other letters, too!
- They slow down LMNOP so kids con grasp that they’re individual letters
- They don’t sing “&” Z, which could confuse children that & is a letter.
The one thing I think is missing is an alphabet chart so the child can look at it if they have no idea. When James was stumped, I had him look at the chart we have on the wall. They could always guess, though.
Yay for having fun while learning, and yay for some peace while cooking dinner!
Speaking up... 