Alphabet Lottery
Gather a lot of plastic Easter egg shells, enough for each letter of the alphabet. On small pieces of paper, write each letter and put the paper inside an eggshell. Collect all the eggs into a large bowl or bag.
During group time, have one child at a time come up and pick a “lottery letter” from among the eggs. Then have that child write their letter on the chalkboard or dry erase board, and name one word that starts with that letter. If they struggle, let them consult the group for help. Repeat this 4 or 5 times with different children, keeping track of who picks each day so that every child gets their turn. Kids love the process of picking from the pile of eggs, so you may find this becomes a regular group time activity.
Newspaper Letter Searches
Provide each child with a page torn from a newspaper. On index cards, print both capital and lower case letters for your letter of the week. (Be sure to use the font type printed in the paper, not school-style font. This activity is designed to help kids become familiar with the font styles used in printed literature, which are often different from the fonts used in traditional school handwriting.) Set the cards out for the kids to refer to. Give them highlighters, and have them go through the print to find all the “letter A’s” or “letter M’s” they can. Make it a game to see who can find the most, and consider offering a small reward (1 skittle per letter, a penny per letter, etc.) for every one they find.