Building Blocks - Upper and Lower Case Letters Match

This particular game is dear to me as it was through this super simple and fun game that my little boy got a hold of lower cases letters. While setting this up for him, I had not expected him to pick up the concept of upper and lower cases really, I knew he will like it as he was and still is super fond of blocks and this case matching game is all about playing with building blocks! :)

My little fellow's obsession for the English alphabet began at 25 months and since then we have played quite a few fun games around identifying the letters. So in about two months, he was able to identify all the letters, in upper case... because that's the only form I had introduced to him so far. I was never looking to train him in knowing the letters by a certain age, I was only keen on feeding his curiosity around letters and helped him identify them as and when he pointed and asked what each letter was. Around 27 months, I began basing our fun games around lower cases to help him understand the different letter cases.

So, I really didn't go by any rule of introducing letter sounds first, and if letters, then only lower case letters. I did have an apprehension if it will cause a problem for him later on once he joins school where they focus on letter sounds and not letter identification. But I really went by what I felt was best for him and what I felt interested him. I am really glad I did that because, today at 3 years, he is doing just fine with letter sounds and the fact that he knows to identify letters in both cases does not hamper his phonics learning journey at all.

So, getting back to this little game. All that we used here are a few building blocks and a marker. I am always looking for new ways to repurpose his existing toys, so used some old building blocks for this little matching activity. The Mini loved it, like I knew he would but he surprised me by matching the upper and lower case letters in just one go! :)

How I made it:

• I used a CD writing pen to write the letters, 2-3 pieces blocks for the upper case letters and single piece blocks for the lower case letters.
• I wrote ABC on the first 3 piece block, one letter exactly positioned on each section the the 3 piece block. Similarly I wrote all the upper case letters till Z.
• I then wrote a-z in lower case on individual single piece blocks.

• I jumbled up all the blocks and handed the 2-3 pieces blocks one by one to the little guy. I asked him to identify the upper case letters, find the single piece blocks with the corresponding lower cases written on it, and fix it on the correct slot of the upper case blocks.
• That is it! He had fun working his way around this :)