Light Table Alphabet

When the children were young we had a glass topped coffee table that the kids used as a light table. At first it was used to trace coloring pages that they wished to color again.

One day we discovered what fun it was to experiment with plastic plates that came tinted with translucent pastel hues. By placing a yellow plate over a blue one the plates appeared green.

Then we discovered the many ways we could play using sheets of tinted acetate. 

• We cut out farm animals and created a table sized farmyard.
• We cut out fairy tale characters and recreated stories that we had read about.

By this time my older two were reading but my youngest was just beginning to learn her letters. At first we cut whole letters out of the acetate but it wasn't long before we discovered how much more versatile it was to just cut out basic shapes and use those to form the letters.

We found that a set of tall lines, small lines, small c-shaped curves and tall C-shaped curves would make most letters. How surprised I was to find that that is what Handwriting Without Tears uses now to teach children how to print. 

At first the letters just appear to be a jumbled pile of indistinguishable shapes. That is the way letters must appear to young children before they have learned to read. It is in learning to distinguish the various shapes that children first begin to read letters and eventually words, sentences and books.

Invite your children over to the light table and offer them a bowl of letters to pour out onto the surface:

• Make patterns with the letters
• Sort the letters by color
• Stack the letters until they fall down
• Try to find letters that match each other

As you play with the letters, use their names and mention the sounds they represent. You will be surprised at how quickly your children learn their letters. Playing with them on the light table just makes the whole process more fun.

Once you turn on your light table you will discover so many fun ways to explore the way light passes through objects. 

My youngest loved putting together letters and then arranging those letters to form words.

The one complaint I have read about these letter pieces is that a few of the letters are difficult at best to form from the pieces that come with the set. My solution would be to add onto the set with homemade pieces made of acetate.