This month the Virtual Book Club for Kids is reading books by Donald Crews. Earlier this month I shared some of his books and activities to go along with them.  I don’t know about you, but my little ones LOVE to see school buses when we are out and about. They get so excited! That enthusiasm  inspired me to put together this simple alphabet game.

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We read School Bus a few times and talked about the job a school bus and its driver have to get kids to and from school safely. Then I introduced our toy school bus and its special passengers.

We used the Sonny School Bus from Mega Bloks, but any similar toy would work. You could also create your own school bus like this milk carton craft from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.  Just add an opening to the top or side for the kids to add their passengers.

For passengers we used a variety of lids. I wrote lowercase letters on ours to help the preschoolers review them, but you could add anything to the lids…numbers, uppercase letters, sight words, shapes, etc.

As soon as we opened the bus Lovey noticed that there were letters on the lids, and she instinctively started putting them in alphabetical order.

Once she was done I introduced the alphabet game. Each of the kids got a job, bus driver or parent. All the parents took their kids (the ABC lids) to find a bus stop around the room.  We basically set them up in a circle around the perimeter of the room.

Once the parents got all of the kids ready at the bus stops the  bus driver drove the bus around to pick up the kids. As he or she got to the bus stop, we all named the letter on the lid before the bus driver put the kid in the bus.  Older kids can also say the letter sound and/or a word that begins with the letter.

I thought the kids would like this game, but I had no idea just how excited they would get about being the bus driver! They played again and again.

All the while they were taking turns, practicing the ABCs, and working together to make sure none of the kids were forgotten by the school  bus each time.

Lovey was a little disappointed that the kids didn’t have a school to go to after the bus picked them up. She decided to build them one, and so began another fun way of extending this great book by Donald Crews.

Use Alphabet Mats to Learn the ABCs

ABC letter mats can be a versatile tool to use in early childhood learning. They can be laminated and used over and over again for letter formation and writing activities. They can also be used to create alphabet books, posters and more. Letter crafts and process art activities related to a letter you are learning can be a fun way for kids to make connections between a letter and something that starts with that beginning sound. In our Alphabet Letter Mats set you’ll find two full sets of alphabet mats to use and tons of ideas for using them. There are over 140 ideas for using the alphabet mats in meaningful ways to reinforce letter recognition and  learning letter sounds.

This 181-page resource pack contains the following:

1) Suggestions for Using the Letter Mats-These ideas include ways to use the mats for small group and center activities and can be done for any letter of the alphabet.
2) Process Art Ideas for Each Letter of the Alphabet-60 ideas!
3) Collage and Texture Art Ideas for Each Letter of the Alphabet-54 ideas!
4) Complete sets of alphabet mats in two different font options.

Get the Alphabet Letter Mats Set

Now that we’ve shared our activity with you, we’re excited to see what you came up with! Please link up your Donald Crews inspired posts to the blog hop linky below. 

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