The present disclosure provides methods for making and sets of athletic balls for use in learning through game play. One or more embodiments include marking each of a number of tennis balls with a different letter symbol of an alphabetical set belonging to a language used in the game play, wherein all the letter symbols of the alphabetical set are used in marking the number of tennis balls; and marking each of the number of tennis balls with a different numerical symbol, the numerical symbol corresponding to a numerical position of the letter symbol in the alphabetical set of the language used in the game play.