Alpha-Bits: Teach Preschoolers the Alphabet with Food

My son likes to eat the alphabet. Discovering Alpha-Bits on a Shaw's grocery store end cap was like finding pirate's treasure. I had been searching for months in hopes of finding this "new" (according to the box) cereal. My son loves to find letters and point out letters, and yes, eat the alphabet. After months of searching for this cereal, which is now back on supermarket shelves after its hiatus, we could finally try bring some home and play with our food.

Preschoolers and the Alphabet

When my son first started recognizing letters, thanks in no small part to a V-tech laptop computer, nightly reading and the PBS show Word World, I decided to find foods with alphabet letters.

I remembered that there was a cereal called Alpha-Bits and started searching for it at each local grocery store. None of them carried the alphabet-shaped cereal.
Young preschoolers and toddlers like to point out and find letters of the alphabet when they start learning.

An online search revealed that his educational cereal had disappeared from the stores, as quietly as an un-returned library book. There were not generic equivalent cereals out, and I couldn't imagine who wouldn't want to buy educational cereal for their children. Then I tasted the "new" Alpha-Bits.

Alpha-Bits: Educational, Not So Tasty

At first I thought the Alpha-Bits cereal was stale. But I just opened the box, and they had just arrived at the local grocery store. Teaching preschoolers the alphabet with this cereal would be pretty easy, I thought, since they won't be too anxious to eat them.

The alphabet cereal has a slightly sweet coating and a spongy texture. I have eaten organic, carob-flavored cookies which tasted better. My son just brought me his bowl of Alpha-bit and said, "No ABC's."

When you place one of the letters in your mouth it sort of feels like a piece of melting foam. Unlike Gerber Puffs, which do sort of melt when they come in contact with saliva, I am not sure that these Alpha-Bits are supposed to have that texture.

Alpha-Bits: Teaching Preschoolers Most of the Alphabet