A while back Penelope was really getting into learning her letters. I went scouring Pinterest for fun alphabet activities, but had trouble finding suggestions focused on basic letter recognition, as opposed to spelling or sound recognition, that weren't advanced fine motor activities. I did try some great free printables that had the traceable letter as well as things beginning with that letter. But even just as a coloring page she lost interest quickly. I needed something both physical and focused strictly on remembering which letters were which. Then "The Alphabet Game" was born.
First, go in your hall closet where you've collected all of your games over the years and pull out that old and most likely busted Twister box. If by some miracle you're still pulling it out when your friends come over for dinner don't worry, you can still play the original game even with the alphabet conversion.
Now here's where you can get as crafty as you like. You need to put a letter of the alphabet on each circle. The game as it stands is two circles shy of having a space for all of the letters. I used a piece of red and green stick on vinyl to cut an extra red and green circle that I squeezed on to the mat at the edges; you could also draw a circle, or have two letters share a circle. I also used the vinyl to make my letters because I happen to have a craft cutter at home, but if I hadn't I probably would have bought a pack of stick on poster letters from any craft store or even Walgreens. You can even just straight up use a Sharpee!
I chose to put the letters on the mat in alphabetical order going vertically, so that it wasn't quite so obvious but we still had the option to hop along while we sang if we wanted to (which we have). Then I put small versions of the letters on the spinner, trying to be sure they were mixed up but still on corresponding colors. There have been times when she was looking for one she couldn't remember quite as well and I could tell her what color circle to look for to narrow her scope. Here too I used vinyl stick on letter cutouts, but when the corners peel up they can catch the spinner making you repeatedly get "M" ("for you, mommy!" – could be worse), so if I were to do it again I would consider just using a marker for this part.
I think this will be a classic in our house for a while as we think of even more ways to modify the game. Maybe it can even become a more Twister like version when we eventually get into spelling (spell "cat"… left hand on… "C"…). However your kid engages with the alphabet, or any curriculum for that matter, I hope this inspires you to think creatively about how to support those lessons in ways that speak to your child's strengths and interests.