Alphabet March - Rochester City School District



Alphabet March

By M’Lou Speranza and Grace Wetzel

Tune: When Johnny Comes Marching Home (also, The Ants Go Marching)

BBCD #4, Track #64

A developmentally appropriate approach to teaching letters in Pre-K is to help children recognize their first (and possibly last) name. These letters and words have more meaning to young children than a random “letter of the day” routine, which doesn’t really have a connection to their world. In this activity, only the letters of the children’s names are used, not the whole alphabet. The letters can be drawn on a half or quarter piece of construction paper and then laminated for durability. In a HighScope classroom, you might use the child’s name and letter link instead. Have your red/green (stop/go) music symbols card handy for this activity.

Scatter the letters in the middle of the circle of children. They march around the letters as they sing the song. When the teacher (or a child as leader) signals stop at the end of the song by holding up the red music symbol card, ask one or two children to find and pick up the first letter of his/her name. When used as a transition, these children can then leave the group to go wash hands, get coat, etc. If just used as a movement activity, they can hold their letters and continue moving with the rest of the group.

After doing the song a couple of times, the children can choose other ways to move besides marching. Repeat song, using their movement, i.e., “We jump around the alphabet…”

We march around the alphabet, hoorah, hoorah

We march around the alphabet, hoorah, hoorah

We’ll find the letters of our name

‘Cause that’s the way we play the game,

And we’ll march until the music comes to a stop.

COR items:

L – Moving in various ways

N – Feeling and expressing steady beat

O – Moving to music

P – Singing

T – Showing awareness of sounds in words

V - Using letter names and sounds

KDIs: B 11; C 16,18; D 22,24,25; F 41,42

Common Core Learning Standards:

Domain 2: Physical Development and Health – Foundational Skills – 3 b., 6 a.

Domain 4: Communication, Language and Literacy, Part A (Approaches to Comm) 1 a. c. g., 3 d. e.,

Part B (English Language Arts and Literacy) Reading Standards: Foundational Skills 2 c. d., 3 b.

Domain 5: Cognition and Knowledge of the World - The Arts – Music – 3, 4

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