I've always loved the idea of sandpaper letters and how they work. Here is an article that shares more information. They're great for muscle memory and letter to letter sound association so I made some for Adriel using both canvas boards and stock cards.
Stock cards: palm sized for Chinese characters
Canvas boards: 12 x 12 inches for letters of the Alphabets and numbers
I started making 12 x 12 inch upper and lowercase letter ones when Adriel was really young.. then I switched to making purely lower case letters on smaller canvas boards as it made more sense not to confuse him.. After all, most of the text that we see are made of lower case letters.
The cards were then stowed away for storage and I when I wanted to use them again after Adriel mastered some reading, I could not find them! HAHAH!
I found the upper and lowercase letters 12 x 12 inches letter board. By about 3 years old, Adriel could differentiate between his upper and lowercase letters and wanted to write so I decided to refine them. Borrowing the idea from his smaller canvas card Chinese letters which I diy-ed and sequenced, I made the ones for the letters of the alphabet.
It is ideal to use red for vowels and blue for consonants when teaching reading if you are following the Montessori method. However, Adriel had no care for it so I kept the multi coloured ones I did and kept it at that.
The Chinese ones cover a small quantity of words that he has mastered.
I added coloured dots in sequence to guide him to the strokes.
We also used the 笔画board from Treasures from Jennifer that I got from Toydler to work on the strokes required for the Chinese language.
Image credits to Toydler
Sandpaper letters are a great way to aid in muscle memory for writing. Adding the stroke sequence also enables a child to learn the correct strokes.
Adriel loves his and he takes them out to practice ever so often.
My canvas boards were from Spotlight, so was the glitter stock card.
My stock cards were given by a dear friend but any white stock cards would work too!
Here is a video of Adriel using the cards.
How the Chinese cards work.
How I make the sandpaper Chinese characters.
The numeral and letter ones are similar. I used templates for block letters I found online.
Do have a go at it if you feel that it helps you! (:
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