Movable Alphabet in our Home

In our home, the alphabet system we use is as follows, according to the AMI Montessori primary and elementary albums:


All letters are CURSIVE


sandpaper letters: 
pink consonants
blue vowels
(I made ours and our "box" is just a white cardboard box)




sandpaper phonograms:  
green
(we do have a nice wood box for these ones)

The x is upside down in this photo

wooden movable alphabet: 
red consonants, blue vowels
organized alphabetically (ideal is NOT alphabetical, but this was affordable, and smaller, but still large enough to work with)





printed movable alphabet: 
(no not in print; this is cursive printed on the computer - these COULD be in print)
set 1: red
set 2: blue
set 3: black
I chose the colors - you could use green (phonogram) and black (rest of the word) to start, then add red for the later activities (red denotes "new").
All stored in a Plano 3701 Tacklebox - one alphabet per tacklebox. This box has curved bottom for ease of removing the letters; and just the right number of compartments needed in the right sizes!

NOTE: This set started out as a tile-based movable alphabet - I had the consonants in red and the vowels in blue - so that longer stories could be written. But then, we transitioned to full-color alphabets.
In a home with lots of children, you'll probably want both types - this post is just about what we have now ;)

This is not ours - but shown here to show
the contents of our tacklebox shown above :) 

For our homeschool and co-op, this has been enough thus far; but I will soon be adding another printed color set because of the number of children needing this material at co-op. For PRIMARY, 3 sets is sufficient, and you could get by with 2. For ELEMENTARY, you really want 3 sets for home use, possibly 4 for ease of use - it is used for a LOT of things, in particular word study and spelling games. It is easy to make and the tacklebox is perfect size.

At first, I did not print the capitals on the back - we needed the lower case right then, so I didn't take the time to add the capitals until we needed them and I just wrote some in; but the capitals should be on one side and the lowercase on the others; as well as cards for punctuation in one of the colors, so that longer stories can be written out. This is where children learn punctuation and capitalization - with this small movable alphabet.

So why the Plano 3701 Tacklebox?

• With the dividers it comes with, there are enough slots for all 26 letters in the same box. You could even add punctuation if you are so inclined (there are sets in my primary album that include punctuation). 
• the far and near sides of the bottoms are curved so the letters slip out so easily with one's fingers (flat bottoms do not allow for ease of removal at all)
• The dividers stay in place so letters don't slip underneath (at least in my experience; the flat bottomed ones allow for sliding of the letters to the next compartment)
• They are affordable at $10 each; and free shipping on Amazon if over $25; I've sometimes seen them in the $8 range as well. 

We have other alphabets, but this is it for our movable alphabet collection ;)


UPDATED TO ADD some close-ups of the tackle-boxes in question:

Photos of our actual colors ;)

Note the curved bottoms
(pictured is a smaller box - punctuation
 or use for numerals/operations/symbols)