• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Living Montessori Now

Montessori Inspiration for Parents and Teachers

  • HOME
  • About
    • About Me
    • Contact Me
    • PR/Advertise
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Montessori
    • About Montessori
    • Resources
    • ABCs of Montessori
    • Overview
    • Principles
    • Free Printables
    • Materials
    • Homeschool Classroom and Materials
      • Circle Time Activities
    • Techniques
    • Training
      • Free Montessori Video Lessons
    • Inspiration
  • Activities
    • Circle Time Activities
    • Art
    • Cultural
    • Language
    • Math
    • Practical Life
    • Practical Life – Grace and Courtesy
    • Sensorial
    • Unit Studies
    • PreK + K Sharing
    • Monthly Themed Activities
    • Holidays and Celebrations
  • Homeschooling
    • Homeschooling
    • Homeschool High School
    • Montessori Homeschool Classroom and Materials
    • Unit Studies
    • PreK + K Sharing
    • Circle Time Activities
    • Monthly Themed Activities
    • Holidays and Celebrations
    • Free Montessori Video Lessons
  • Free Printables
    • Free Printables
    • Sign up for the Living Montessori Now Newsletter & Get Monthly Subscriber Freebies!
    • More Than 13 Years’ Worth of Free Printables and Montessori-Inspired Activities
    • Free Montessori Geography Album
  • Holidays
    • Resources for Upcoming Holidays
    • Holidays and Celebrations
  • Subscribe
    • Sign up for the Living Montessori Now Newsletter & Get Monthly Subscriber Freebies!
  • Shop
    • Shop
    • Products
    • My Products

Free Montessori-Friendly Alphabet Activities and Resources

November 26, 2018 By Deb Chitwood 10 Comments

When you’re introducing phonetic sounds, there are many activities you can use to supplement Montessori language activities. As long as you emphasize the phonetic sound for each letter, you can find numerous compatible resources that will interest and not confuse your child.

I’m sharing alphabet activities here that aren’t necessary designed as Montessori activities or printables, but they’re Montessori friendly because they can easily be used or adapted for a Montessori environment.

Montessori Tips and Resources for Teaching Letter Sounds

Use hands-on materials and activities rather than worksheets whenever possible. Emphasize lower-case letters more than upper-case letters and short-vowel sounds before long-vowel sounds.

Teach Letter Sounds Using Montessori Principles

For information on teaching letter sounds, follow the links in my post on teaching letter sounds.

Some homeschoolers like to do a letter of the week, while others introduce letters more irregularly but as their child is interested. I tended to introduce letters according to my children’s interest, rather than following a regular schedule for introducing letters. Just find what works best for you and your child. If you’d like a specific order for introducing letter sounds, you’ll find common Montessori orders here.

My monthly themed subscriber freebie pack and free do-a-dot printables focus on a specific letter sound.

How to Prepare Themed Montessori Shelves

You’ll see many of them in my post on how to prepare themed Montessori shelves.

You’ll find many Montessori-style activities for learning letter sounds in my Language activities category.

You’ll also find lots of free Montessori phonics printables in my post of free Montessori materials online.

Free Montessori-Friendly Alphabet Activities and Resources

Following is a list of some of the free Montessori-friendly resources you’ll find online with letter-sound activities. I’m just listing ones that have either lowercase letters or both lowercase and uppercase letters (or are activities that can be easily switched to lowercase). For Montessori-style language activities, be sure to emphasize lowercase letters. If there’s an activity that uses uppercase letters, just use lowercase instead. If it uses the long-vowel sound, just switch it to the short-vowel sound.

Reinforcing Letter Sounds with Songs

""

You’ll find phonics songs that go well with learning letter sounds in my post on reinforcing letter sounds with phonics songs.

Free Sign Language Alphabet and Phonics Songs

I also have a post with free sign language alphabet and phonics songs.

Homeschool Creations has the original playdough mat along with many other activities for beginning letter activities.

Totally Tots has lowercase alphabet crafts.

Alphabet Crafts

Alphabet Crafts

  • Red Ted Art has handprint animals alphabet (including e for elephant).
  • No Time for Flash Cards has lots of lowercase letter crafts (such as b for boat).
  • Easy Peasy and Fun has fingerprint alphabet.
  • The Imagination Tree has lots of letter activities (such as the threading beads alphabet).
Free Alphabet Printables

Free Alphabet Printables

  • Gift of Curiosity has 101 ways to teach the alphabet (such as road letters free printable).
  • Royal Baloo has a Zoomin Moving Alphabet pack for each letter. The packs use both uppercase and lowercase letters.
  • The Measured Mom has many free letter activities and printables (such as the c alphabet book)
  • 3 Dinosaurs has lots of free ABC printables.

This Reading Mama has lots of free resources for learning the alphabet.

Hands on as We Grow shares a variety of activities for teaching letter sounds.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has alphabet hats free printable.

Blessings Overflowing has lots of letter activities.

Brightly Beaming Resources has letter of the week and sound of the week activities and songs.

Totschooling has lots of free alphabet and letter sound printables.

Letters of Literacy has letter crafts from A-Z.

Confessions of a Homeschooler has many phonics activities and printables.

Mrs. Jones has activities and songs for learning the letter sounds.

Montessori Mom has activities for learning the alphabet while cooking. This is a Montessori site, but I wanted to include it here since it uses activities that go well with a letter of the week approach.

Starfall has lots of fun online phonics activities. For a preschooler, you might want to limit computer time to about 15 minutes a day. Of course, if you prefer to avoid computer time altogether for a preschooler, that’s awesome. There are plenty of hands-on materials available.

Progressive Phonics has my (and my granddaughter’s) favorite Montessori-compatible phonics activities and readers. You can use this for free online or as printables. I like to limit screen time as much as possible, so I print it out. (It’s the most fun reading cuddled together on the couch anyway.) What we especially love is the way the readers make initial blending much more effortless. The adult reads most of the book with the child reading only the large words in red. It’s so much more fun and better for reading comprehension for beginning readers! Don’t skip the alphabet books even if your child knows all the letter sounds. Zoey especially loved them because of the silly stories and more developed plots.

Do you have a favorite way to introduce letter sounds?

Deb - Signature
Montessori at Home or School - How to Teach Grace and Courtesy eBookLearn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!

The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.

If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), Instagram, and YouTube. You can find me on bloglovin’ and Twitter, too.

And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter. You’ll receive some awesome freebies in the process!

Filed Under: Activities - Language, Montessori Homeschool Classroom and Materials Tagged With: alphabet activities, free alphabet activities, free alphabet resources, letter of the week, letter sounds, Montessori language activities, Montessori-friendly alphabet activities, phonetic activities

Previous Post: « Favorite Montessori-Friendly Advent Calendars {Gift Guide}
Next Post: The Best Peace Books for Kids »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy Steiner says

    September 7, 2010 at 5:31 am

    Thanks for these great ideas and links! As a new mama to homeschooling I can’t get enough ideas!

    Stopping by to say “Hi” from the Hip Homeschool Hop! Have a great day!

    Reply
    • Deb Chitwood says

      September 7, 2010 at 12:11 pm

      Thanks for your comment, Amy! I hope you’re able to use some of the ideas. I appreciate your stopping by – and I hope you have a great day, too!

      Reply
  2. Myrtle says

    September 7, 2010 at 9:27 pm

    We use play dough when ever we are working with letters formation and sounds. The kids all get involved. They love making things that start with that letter. Thanks for the great resources!

    Reply
    • Deb Chitwood says

      September 8, 2010 at 12:23 pm

      Thanks so much for your kind comment, Myrtle! It’s a great idea to make things with play dough that start with the letter being introduced!

      Reply
  3. Evelyn says

    September 12, 2010 at 7:40 am

    Oh, Deb! We are always connected. I just introduced the first 3 consonants to my 3yo and just yesterday we did our very first mini-booklet about the mmmmmmm. He even cut, glued and colored… things he’d not choose to do before. I’m so excited. Thanks for posting! I’ll keep reading further more but in case I don’t find the answer, when do you introduce the capital letters??? I have no idea how to do this. Plus I haven’t even started making them at home, yikes!

    Lots of hugs and many blessings,
    Evelyn
    http://2pequenostraviesos.blogspot.com

    Reply
    • Deb Chitwood says

      September 12, 2010 at 6:15 pm

      We are always connected, aren’t we, Evelyn! Great to visit with you again! I’m happy your 3-year-old is enjoying his letter activities!

      Actually, I’ve never had to worry about capital letters. I didn’t work in a Montessori school that even used capital sandpaper letters. With alphabet books, etc., children usually seem to spontaneously pick them up after they’ve learned the lower-case letters/sounds.

      If you do want to systematically introduce writing capital letters, you could just trace them in a sand or salt tray. Or you could use an activity like this one from Info Montessori: http://www.infomontessori.com/language/handwriting-punctuation-upper-and-lower-case-letters.htm. There’s a lovely free download from Montessori for Learning that you can use to match upper- and lower-case letters: http://montessoriforlearning.com/Pre-ReadingFiles/UpperCaseLowerCaseMatchPictureCardSet1.pdf. To make it easy on yourself, you could use these letters for the last two activities!

      Reply
  4. Evelyn says

    September 13, 2010 at 6:50 pm

    Hurray! Thank goodness I won’t need to be making our homemade sandpaper Capital letters.
    You’re such a great resource for us homeschooling Montessori moms. Thanks for the links. I’ll be making something similiar for Spanish language. But I don’t use the computer to save time and printer ink. I use markers, pictures from old books and index cards. They are working fantastic for me so far. (It could get a little hectic here trying to homeschool 2 boys: one in Children’s House and the other in 6-9 Elementary.)
    Big hugs from PR,
    Evelyn

    Reply
    • Deb Chitwood says

      September 13, 2010 at 7:15 pm

      It’s great that you’ve found a system that works well for you, Evelyn! It is more challenging homeschooling at two different levels, isn’t it?! My children are 5 years apart, so the levels were quite different. The nice thing about both unit studies and Montessori is that they can work well for more than one level. But it can get hectic!

      Reply
  5. Karen says

    October 2, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    HI, I just found your wonderful blog! I love all these ideas…I would like to add that we really enjoy writing letters in the sand at the beach. We also build letter with blocks, paint in a bag, and wikki stix. Thanks again for your lovely posts.
    Karen
    Sippy Cup Central Mom
    http://sippycupcentralmom.blogspot.com

    Reply
    • Deb Chitwood says

      October 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm

      Thanks so much for your comment, Karen! Those are great ideas – I appreciate your sharing them! I LOVE the idea of writing letters in the sand at the beach!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

What Are You Looking For?

...and get free geography album, monthly subscriber freebie, and access to the Living Montessori Now Resource Library! 

 I respect your privacy

Categories

Shop Living Montessori Now!

Living Montessori Now Sponsors

Montessori Print Shop

Alison's Montessori
Montessori for the Earth

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives

I Recommend (My Affiliates)

Montessori by Mom

Shop Montessori Services
Shop For Small Hands

How to Get Kids to Listen without Nagging, Reminding, or Yelling



Shop KiwiCo

Shop Little Passports for Award-Winning Adventure

Printed Alphabet Wood Tracing Board

Little Passports

Footer

Connect with LMN



Supervision

The activities shared on this blog require adult supervision at all times. You know which activities are appropriate for your children and/or the children under your care and are responsible for those children's safety.

You Can Also Find Me

Bits of Positivity PreK + K Sharing Spring Snow Publications

Subscribe by Email


Copyright © 2025 Deb Chitwood · Web Design & Hosting · Servously.com