A cute quilt makes learning letters fun and creates a stunning visual.
Learning the alphabet can be a big task for young minds. Creating an alphabet quilt makes learning letters a tactile and visual experience. Incorporating more than one type of learning style (such as visual, auditory, or tactile/touch) means a better chance for children to grasp a concept. A quilt hanging on a wall helps tie the idea of the letter shape and a word association together.
For this quilt, you will need to find material with different pictures on it to represent each letter. Bandanas from a craft store yielded a surprising number of options. You can find bandanas with babies (B), cats (C), dogs (D), frogs (F), lip prints (L for lips or K for kiss), monkeys (M), and zebra stripes, just to name a few. Look for more material scraps at home to be creative with (like a green scrap for...well, green!). Not all letters may correspond to a fabric square, so choose a yard of plain color for hard-to-place-letters. You also need a fun fabric for the four corners (there is even a bandana with a print of the alphabet on it).
For this quilt, if you are not particularly crafty, purchase a set of bulletin board letters from a teaching supply store. The letters were 4 1/2 inches high. Or, if preferred, you can get stencils and cut letter shapes out of black felt.
For the quilt, cut squares of fabric measuring 9 1/2 inches by 9 1/2 inches. Do one square per week, as you review one letter per week. At the beginning of learning or reviewing a lesson, introduce the fabric, the word picture associated with it, and the bulletin board letter to place on the square. (You can tape, staple, or sew the letter to the fabric, as desired). As you accumulate squares, you can sew each one on individually.
The layout will look like this: 6 rows of 5 (9 1/2 inch) squares, using 26 letters of the alphabet and 4 fun corner pieces (also 9 1/2 inch squares). Piece together in this order:
- Row 1: Fun Fabric, A, B, C, Fun Fabric
- Row 2: D,E,F,G,H
- Row 3: I,J,K,L,M
- Row 4: N,O,P,Q,R
- Row 5: S,T,U,V,W
- Row 6: Fun Fabric, X, Y, Z, Fun Fabric
What You Need: Material (in this case, bandanas and material scraps), letters (4-inches high), thread and needle or sewing machine.
The quilt presented here is for use in a learning capacity, versus a cuddling capacity. Hang it on a wall and add one square at a time. Or, for the crafty people, use fabric letters instead of bulletin board letters.
No matter how assmeble the Alphabet Quilt, this will be a special lesson.
