Alphabet Counts

by Steve Bennett

Well, here's an activity that will give your kids plenty of practice in counting up every letter of the alphabet, and even some words and other items while they're at it!

Kids 7 to 10
indoor activity

Required:
Your time only

Assign a value, 1 through 26, to each letter of the alphabet. Then add the spellings of various items to see what their numeric values are. For example, if A equals 1, C is 3, and E is worth 5, then the total of the word "ace" is 9. See which object your children can spot that has the highest value for its name.

Ask your kids to predict which family member's name will total the highest number and which will add up to the lowest number. Then ask your children to find the actual values of all your family members' names. In addition, your kids can guess the highest and lowest valued: states, countries, animals, friends, planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto), and so on.

For a super challenge, create secret alphabet/number correlations. Then have your kids tell you the totals of various objects, and see how long it takes them to crack the code. So what will your kids guess are the values of M, I, S, and P if "Mississippi" is worth 76?

More on: Building Math Skills