Got your sunscreen with ya? Sandals and snorkel? Your sleuth-like sense of snooping adventure? Then you, my friend, are ready to play the Simple Saturday Beach Blanket ABC's with me and about 70 SCBWI friends from all around the world. Come on! This is going to be fun!!!!
This game can be played one of two ways - with letters or with the initial sounds of objects. Either way, Beach Blanket ABC's is a marvelous way to reinforce the sequential patterning of the alphabet.
All you do is convince your band of travelers to gawk out of the car window and, jointly, search for a particular letter together. Letters can be found on billboards, buildings, neon signs, and license plates.
While basking on a beach in the Bahamas, I convinced a wacky band of RA's to play Beach Blanket ABC's with me and we had a blast! Want to see what we came up with? It's great!
Kristin started us off by modeling the letter A on the front of her shirt. Jo also found an apple. (What would an alphabet game be like if the sacred apple wasn't represented, right?)
I found a double whammy for the letter B - a boy with a bucket!
Coconuts, anyone? The large or small variety? The letter C was also represented by a fanch schmancy camera. (I wouldn't know where to begin to use that thing! I'll stick with my CoolPics.)
D is for driftwood or a Rasta Man's dreadlocks.
E is for Mary's elbow.
F is for a flapping First Aide flag. (Catch the alliteration? Heh. Heh.)
I found two for the price of one for the letters G and H. Check out George chilling out on a hammock!
I is for ice.
K is for the SCBWI kite.
L is for lounge chairs.
M is for mask.
N is for Chris' Australian nose.
O is for the olives in my salad.
P is for parasail or pirate. That's right, I said pirate.
Q is for the quarter that just happened to be laying on my chair.
R is for raft.
S is for sunglasses. (Thanks, V is for Vicki.)
T is for towel.
U is for umbrella.
V is for Vicki sporting the sunnies.
W is for waves.
X is for X marks the sandy spot!
Y is for yoga.
Z is for a cool zebra-striped shell.
Now you know your sandy ABC's.
Thanks for hanging at the beach with me.
And huge thanks to all my SCBWI buddies for the help and all the fun!
I want to home with the armadillo…
the fun projects this guide is filled with, projects that tickle the creative side of the brain as well as the academic.
What’s not to love about this macaroni-backed armadillo? Isn’t he darling?
Y’all, instead of hopping a flight to the heart of Texas, why don’t you simply download the Educator’s Guide right here and have some southern-fried fun. 
