Letter A: Toddler/Preschool Time

My 3yr. old has been a little out of sorts during the school day lately. Then it hit me---she was bored! I needed to do something a little more challenging for her, so she started "Letter Time" this week. Our letter of the week was A. Of course that seems obvious, but actually I picked it because I knew she already recognized the letter since it is a part of her name. I haven't decided if we'll go ahead and do all the letters in order or if I'll switch it up. We'll see.

Since I'm not one to reinvent the wheel (I don't have the time!), I purchased Erica's Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum. She has printable activities plus a lesson plan for each letter of the alphabet.  My goal is to get all the activities printed, cut, laminated and put in large envelopes sorted by the letters. Then when I need it, all the resources will be together. As I said, it is my goal. It has not become reality yet--lol. Since we are still at the introductory phase with letters, I only printed a couple of activities that were included. I know that we will probably go through the alphabet at least one other time (w/ little sister in tow next year) so I"ll save some for then.

 

This activity was an size sort activity available in the download. My daughter put the ants in order from biggest to smallest and from smallest to biggest. Then we talked about the colors.

  

We used the letter sort mat. For more variety, we switched it up by hiding capital and small letter a's in a bowl of macaroni. She dug through the bowl and then placed the letter on the appropriate side of the mat. She really enjoyed this.

  

Here she sorted capital a's and small letter a's on the mat. These were the ants that were included in the download.

 

Next we did a letter A craft. I got this idea from Totally Tots, who got it from No Time For Flashcards.

Then on Friday our toddler/preschool co-op did apple activities which fit perfectly into our "Letter A" theme--- and this wasn't planned at all. The kids talked about the different colors of apples, read apple books, tasted apples and played an apple game---which they loved!

I blogged about an apple unit earlier in the year: Everything Apples and Apple Collage Craft

 

Mrs. S. came up with this adaption to the finger-play "Five Red Apples" She had red, green and yellow balloons in a pile on the floor. The children stood in a circle (well as close to a circle as 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5yr. olds can) and did the following poem. When their name was said, they got to "pick an apple" aka balloon from the floor. When everyone had an apple they had fun tossing them in the air. I think the kids played this game at least 4 times.

Five Red Apples

(or however many children there are in the group)

Five red apples hanging in a tree (Hold up five fingers)

The juiciest apples that you ever did see.

(Child's name) came by and wanted a treat (pick a balloon)

And one little apple was hers to eat.

For more preschool ideas check out: