If you are looking for letter J activities to help your child learn the letter J sound, I have a great activity for you! This letter J activity is a lot of fun for young learners. It is a multi sensory activity that includes lots of movement, which I think is the best way to help children learn letter sounds, or learn anything at all for that matter! This letter J activity is very easy to prepare – it does not take much time, and you probably have all the materials needed for the activity in your home or classroom already. It is a fun way to introduce the sound of the letter J to your child one-on-one, but also works very well with a small group of children. Please read on for instructions for a fun letter J activity!
Materials Needed
For the letter J activity, you will need:
- Several colors of felt rectangles. You can improvise if you don’t have felt on hand. I chose felt because it is durable and inexpensive, but you can also use construction paper, card stock, or something else that you have in multiple colors. The felt, or whatever you use instead, will be on the floor and will be jumped on, so keep that in mind. Alternatively – if you happen to have stepping stones you can use those instead. That will take this activity to the next level of fun!
- Matching pieces of paper or cardstock. You want to match the colors of the felt (or whatever you choose for item number one on the list of materials).
- Printable Letter J files (you can find them below)
Instructions for the Letter J Activity
- Gather colored paper to match the felt rectangles. Print the Letter J printable on a few of the pieces of paper. Make sure you have a letter J on several different colors. Or you can print the letter J on white paper or a color that you do not have on the floor in order to give emphasis to the letter J. Most of the sheets of paper in your stack should be plain colors with no J on them.
- Note: There is an uppercase Letter J printable and a lowercase letter J printable. You can use whichever one you prefer, or you can use both if you want to include uppercase and lowercase letter recognition as part of the activity. I usually use only uppercase letters when teaching letter sounds to younger children because some of the lower case letters are quite confusing. Lower case b, d, p, and q are pretty hard for little ones to keep straight! But in this case, lowercase letter J looks so similar to uppercase letter J that I think it is fine to use both the uppercase and lowercase letters.
- Lay your felt rectangles on the floor in front of your child. If you are doing this with a group of children, you will need one of each color for each child.
- Tell your child that you are going to introduce a new letter of the alphabet – the letter J! Show him the letter J that is printed on your colored piece of paper or cardstock. Tell him what sound the letter J makes (it is the sound at the beginning of the word jump, jelly, join, etc.). Teach him that the sound of J (make the sound) is the sound at the beginning of the word jump. J is for jump!
- Now tell your child that you are going to play a game called J is for Jump. You are going to show her a color and she is going to jump onto that color of felt on the floor. Then you will switch to a different color and she will jump to the new color. But when she sees the piece of paper with the letter J on it, she is going to jump up and down over and over and make the J sound until you switch to a new color. Because J is for jump!
- Make sure to say the J sound with your child if she needs help remembering or saying it correctly.
- Note: This game is also a great way to practice naming colors with your child. Simply ask your child to say the name of the color as you show it to him.
Go ahead and play the game until your child begins to lose interest. Your child should catch on to the sound of the letter J in no time at all! If it doesn’t stick right away, don’t worry. Try again another day and your child will get it when she is ready.
Thank you for visiting and I hope this letter J activity helped you with your letter J lesson plans. Check out the alphabet activities below for more engaging activities for helping your child learn letter sounds. There are lots of fun things here for creating joyful learning!
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