If you're looking for a fun alphabet activity to try with your kids, then try building giant letters outdoors. It makes for a great outdoor alphabet activity for hyperlexic kids.
We saw plenty of signs of hyperlexia long before I knew what hyperlexia was. But one of those signs was my son's intense fascination with alphabet letters. He loves building letters and numbers out of pretty much anything and has for as long as I can remember. One example are the letters he made out of crayons.
And alphabet activities? That's seriously how he will happily spend his entire day. Well that and reading all the alphabet books he can. Speaking of which, if you need hyperlexic kid approved books or suggestions for great alphabet books, check out this book list.
Anyway, given his love for letters and how much he enjoys building letters, I thought he might enjoy building gigantic letters outdoors. Like big, big letters. Essentially taking what he loves, but doing it on a much larger scale than normal.
I mean we already do plenty of indoor activities with his letters so we might as well do some outdoor ABC activities too, right?
Well, that's where this outdoor alphabet activity comes in.
What You'll Need for this Outdoor Alphabet Activity for Kids
Ready to turn your backyard into the ultimate alphabet construction zone? Well, here's what you'll need for this outdoor letter play activity:
- Old window casings, scrap pieces of wood, large sticks, and/or other loose parts your kid could use to build giant letters outdoors - Basically use whatever you have on hand and get creative! That might mean using toys like hula hoops, pool noodles, and skipping ropes.
For this activity, we personally used old window casings of various lengths. We recently had new windows installed in our house and, unfortunately, the interior casings didn't fit properly. So we ended up with all of these perfectly good pieces of wood that we had no use for. They were the perfect thing to use to build letters in the backyard though!
Also, activities like this one are a good reminder of all the benefits of loose parts play for kids. So hang on to those pieces of scrap wood and whatnot instead of just tossing them or recycling them.
Time to Build Some Giant Alphabet Letters!
My oldest son J went to town making a bunch of big letters, as I knew he would. His love for alphabet learning runs deep. Turns out it's hyperlexia as I would learn years later. Anyway, he worked his way through the alphabet randomly, while his younger brother K watched.
Sometimes, after J would finish building a letter, he would jump over it while saying the letter name. So you could also turn this activity into a letter sounds activity if you wanted. Or you could also try turning it into a gross motor or movement activity by walking along the letter after it's built. There's certainly lots of ways to adapt this activity into an outdoor alphabet game.
This outdoor alphabet activity was perfect for my hyperlexic kid. He absolutely loved it!
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