Alphabet Hands Obstacle Course & Scavenger Hunt

I found this awesome high five obstacle course on Lalymom, knowing full well that the boys would love this activity.  However, I figured the handprints wouldn't be quite enough to keep them engaged.  So I thought about what the love.  They love letters.  Therefore, it made sense to write letters on these hands.  That's how the alphabet hands were born!

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I cut out 26 hands from card stock using my Silhouette Cameo with the help of my trusty assistant, J.  I used about six different colors.  Once all the hands were cut out, I wrote a letter on each one.  I put an uppercase letter on one side and the corresponding lowercase letter on the other aide, which means we could do the following activity for uppercase letters or lowercase letters.  It's like two activities in one!

What if you don't have a digital cutting tool?  Print off a hand image and cut out 26.  Or trace your child's hand 26 times and make it into craft time.  Don't want to cut out 26 hands?  Use foam shapes from the dollar store instead.

If you have a laminator, I would definitely laminate them to avoid causalities like below...And yes, it HAD to have a band-aid.

While K was napping, J helped me tape each of the hands to random spots on the wall throughout our dining room, piano room, and front entryway.  I had no idea he would have that much fun putting the hands up, but he did.  

Once we were done scattering them around, it was time to play high five with the alphabet hands.  This activity really was an obstacle course as I still hadn't tidied up the toys in the dining room from when I taught my last piano lesson...like three weeks ago.  Ahem.

So off J went, starting with A, moving to B, and working his way through the entire alphabet.  He had to jump to high five some of the letters, which was an added energy burner. 

I was hoping to keep the hands up for when K woke up, but once J ran and high fived all the hands, he wanted to play with them on the floor.  So he took the hands down, by himself, once again going in alphabetical order.  Then he spent a good hour or two just playing with the hands themselves.

Don't worry.  K didn't get left out completely!  A few days later, it was absolutely pouring outside, so I set up the alphabet hands again so that I could let K have a turn.  And just as a side note, they are still hanging up, almost a week later, and the boys will often high five letters as they pass them.

Looking for more fun alphabet learning activities?  You can see all of our alphabet activities here, including our Outdoor Alphabet Scavenger Hunt.