Every Letter Makes a Sound
We have the the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics set on the door of our refrigerator. I’m the type of mom who can’t get the kids ready for bed until all the toys have been accounted for and put back in their proper places. (The goat is still missing, and continues to drive me crazy.) So, instead of putting out all twenty six letters and then trying to hunt them all down every night, I just put out 6- R, S, T, L, N, and M. Tiny and Buba received the phonics magnets last Christmas, so they’ve been playing with these letters for 6-7 months. The magnetic letters go into the holding device, and when pushed, the holding device plays a little song that tells what letter each sound makes.
Anyhow, about a month ago, Buba was sitting on his potty, and he yelled out, “I’m making peeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Tiny immediately starts singing, “P says /t/*. P says /t/. Every letter makes a sound. P says /t/.” (*A letter written between two forward slashes is read as the sound that letter makes.) I was about to attempt to make a teachable moment out of this, when Buba piped in with, “No, no, Tiny. T says /t/.”
I was surprisingly shocked. Did my 2-year-old son just correctly identify a letter and its appropriate sound? I had to find out how far his letter knowledge went, so I took Buba to the fridge and asked him to identify each letter one by one. (i.e. Me: Where’s the letter R? Buba: Right here!) He knew all six of them. I couldn’t believe it! I wondered how long he had known all of these letters and whether or not Tiny knew them as well. I brought Tiny over to the fridge and asked the same questions. She did not answer any of them correctly, but we put each letter into the holding device and listened as it sang the sound for each song. She giggled and jumped and clearly did not care that she did not have the same letter knowledge as her brother. No biggie. That’s what kindergarten is for.
But tonight, I had to laugh as I listened to Tiny sing while I did dressed her in her pajamas: “Cow says moo. Cow says moo. Every letter makes a sound. Cow says mooooooooooo!”
I love the leapfrog magnets. We have the video too. For a little bit, if we sand the song Michael would say some of the sounds! Hopefully with EI, we’ll get to the point where he can do it by himself
Mr. Mischief borrowed one of those from a friend for a month or so. He LOVED it, and learned all the letters really fast. We kept it in a zip-lock bag and played with it together. Pull out some more letters! You might be surprised how quickly they learn all 26!
We have the same toy, although it doesn’t get a whole lot of use any more. The song kind of drove me nuts, but it was a great teaching tool. The magnets are currently scattered all over our play room : )
Oh, so cute! Lucas hates that toy, but it definitely helped our pair learn their letters.
If only Jess could remember “which way the circle goes for little D”.
Ah nice! 
That’s awesome! Alex was in the bath the other night, and they have those bath letters? Well a Y was sitting by the wall not in the tub, and she said “mommy, y!” I said why what? She said “Mommy!! Y!!!” I said “WHY WHAT!!!???” Duh me…she wanted the Y! How on earth she knew that, I still don’t understand.
Our girls aren’t quite up to letters yet (I don’t think!), but it is just amazing how much they know…things you didn’t realize they were absorbing…and they just come out with them so nonchalantly. It’s truly amazing.
GO BUBBA!!
We have that same toy. Logan re-discovered it a few days ago and switched between the Q and having it sing the alphabet song.
Burke knew all of his letters going into preschool…Maggie couldn’t have cared less about them. Logan (as usual) is somewhere in the middle of all that
I think I will have to buy these because Sebastian is REALLY into letter right now. My guess is that it stems from his desire to label things – something he has been late to do but is catching up beautifully. He now knows A, B, C, O, T and will say all of them except A. He doesn’t yet know the sounds they make so that will be a fun extension of this “game” as he gets older.