Recently O has been asking us what letter words begin with, we ask him what letter he thinks it begins with and will sound out the word for him, exaggerating the first letter. This works well, but it’s nice for him to see letters in written down format too so he can relate the sounds to the written letter. I had a look through the Twinkl website to find what alphabet and Phonics activities I could print out and found a whole host of print-out’s to choose from.
First we printed off this I Spy sheet, which could be used for so many things. We used it to find things that begin with certain letters, for example I would ask O if he could find something beginning with ‘b’ and he would point out the ball. He loved this game! We also have just used it to practice searching for items, ‘where is the watch?’. A nice game when you want them to stay still for a few minutes or just calm down!
Next we printed out these alphabet letter mats. I placed the coloured mat down on the table and gave O different items from around the house to place on the correct letter E.g. a toy car for ‘c’, fork for ‘f’, block for ‘b’. Another game that O loved! I also noticed someone had written on the ‘ideas’ section on the Twinkl page that they had collected bottle lids and wrote the letters on them as they were easier to pick up and place on the mat rather than circles of card.
There are so many fantastic resources, I’ve only been looking at the early years and SEN pages so far, and here are some other things we’ll be trying out:
Bunny hop for practising pencil control and a cardboard tube rocket.
Minibeast craft activity pack (full of fab ideas for us to do this spring) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Story Sack Resource, which O will love!
There are way too many exciting resources to list, these are just a few of the ones that O would like to use. I also love that on each resource page you can click ‘suggest a change’ if there is something you dislike about the resource or if you would simply like different lettering/colours etc.
You’re probably wondering what Twinkl is? It’s a trusted primary teaching resource, with over 202,000 unique resources. That’s a lot of resources and why I still have so many things to print out for O!
Twinkl also has a create section, so you can create whatever unique resource you would like. Teachers might like this for door names, extra resources for a story sack they’re developing or perhaps activities for a kids birthday party?! I haven’t had time to use this yet, but will let you know how that works out. Twinkl also have their own Forum where you can ask other users questions and start your own discussions on all the resources available.
Twinkl offers three subscription levels to their users;
Free membership that allows access to the majority of our resources;
Gold membership which is a high quality, low cost option at £29.95 a year. This gives access to more resources, exclusive offers and online support; and
Platinum membership which allows access to everything above AND Twinkl Create and is priced at £44.95 per year.
Disclosure: We’ve been given free access to Twinkl Platinum Membership in return for an honest review.
J x
mummy m's memories says
We love twinkle here too. We used it just before J started school, to help her with her pen control. #binkylinky
Heather Simpson says
We’ve just discovered Twinkl too and love it, even for older kids there’s so much to do.
Jenny Eaves says
It’s great isn’t it, can’t believe how many resources they have! 🙂 x
Jenny Eaves says
I haven’t looked much at the older kids things, but it does look fab! 🙂 x
Laura says
I’m a fan of Twinkl too 🙂 great resources and very reasonable pricing structure 🙂 x
Jenny Eaves says
It’s great isn’t it! 🙂
Lindsay @ Newcastle Family Life says
Twinkl looks great , i will have to look into it when my little ones are a bit older as have heard so many great things about it. x #binkylinky
Jenny Eaves says
A lot of people seem to like it, so many great resources! 🙂 x
Catherine says
We’re a huge fan of Twinkl’s resources – especially their story sacks 🙂
#BYOBH
Jenny Eaves says
That’s great, our printer’s stopped working so will have to print more when we get a chance! 🙂
Emily says
I love Twinkl Resources! The play dough mats are great. Thanks for linking up to the #BinkyLinky
Jenny Eaves says
I haven’t got to them yet, will be having a look for them later! 🙂 x