Alphabet Cards

About the Alphabet Cards

Alphabet Cards come with the Alphabet Mat (English version), but extra sets can be ordered as desired. A set includes two decks of 26 cards, for a total of 52 cards.

Use Alphabet Cards to teach letter recognition and create word games. Each colorful card has a letter on one side, printed in both upper and lower case, and an image that starts with that letter on the other side.

Use Alphabet Cards with the Alphabet Mat or place them on the Card Mat. These cards create excitement, reinforce learning, and build language skills.

Each card is the length of a Bee-Bot or Blue-Bot step, so they can help students plan their trips around the mat as well.

Lesson Ideas

Although these ideas refer to Bee-Bot, they can all be done with Blue-Bot as well.

Remind students to press X to erase the commands the previous student entered.

Lesson Idea 1: Pick a Card, Any Card!

Divide students into groups.
One student picks a card at random from the deck.
Another navigates Bee-Bot to that letter and says the word that is on the card.
How many other words can the students think of that start with that letter?
Repeat, with all students having a turn.

Lesson Idea 2: Spell a Word
Having a set of cards (two decks) allow for words that more than one letter in the same word, like tooth or dad.

Divide students into groups.
Have a student make a row of cards showing letters that spell a word.
Can the other students read the word?
Have one student navigate Bee-Bot to the first letter.
The next student can code Bee-Bot to go to the second letter.
Continue until the word is complete.
What is the longest word the group can come up with?
Have students keep track of the number of letters in each word and record the total at the end of their time with Bee-Bot.

Lesson Idea 3: Categories

Turn all the cards to the side that shows the picture.
Have students find pictures that go together in some way. For example, find all the pictures of birds. Find all the pictures that are about music. Find all the animals that live in or near the ocean. Find all the pictures that have more than one of the same object. They can come up with additional groupings.
Then have the students take turns going to all the pictures in the group they designed.
Have them explain why they chose the pictures they did and how the objects in the pictures are similar.

Lesson Idea 4: Using the Online Alphabet Mat

If students are using computers in your classroom, have them use the online Alphabet Mat in the Bee-Bot Emulator in a browser. They can spell words and do these Lesson Ideas using the virtual Bee-Bot.

Lesson Idea 5: Create Your Own Game!

Encourage students to invent a game involving words and letters. Their game might not include a mat at all!