Pumpkin Letter Activities

From: Pre-K Pages

Halloween Letter Matching

Setting: Small Group, ABC/Literacy Centers

Objective: Visually discriminate letter shapes, matching

Materials: laminating film, scissors, orange construction paper, pen, magnetic letters

Directions: Fold each sheet of construction paper in half and cut it in the shape of a pumpkin. Use a pen to trace magnetic letters onto each pumpkin mat. Laminate the pumpkin mats and give one to each child in your small group. Have students match magnetic letters to the correct outlines.

Pumpkin Beginning Sounds

Setting: Small Group, Literacy Centers

Objective: Letter Sounds

Materials: Orange construction paper, scissors, laminating film, Sharpie marker, alphabet items from Lakeshore Letter Sound Teaching Tubs, pumpkin container

Directions: Select certain sounds your students need to work on and place the items from the Lakeshore Letter Sound tubs in your pumpkin container. Cut large pumpkin shapes from the construction paper, write your letter sounds on each pumpkin with the Sharpie marker and laminate the pumpkins for durability. Seat students around the table, place the pumpkin container in the middle. Students will take turns selecting items from the container, identifying the beginning sound, and placing the item on the mat with the corresponding beginning sound.

Leaf Letter Fishing

From PreKinders:

Leaf Letter Fishing

Setting: Small Group, Literacy Centers
 
Objective: Alphabet Recognition
 
Materials: leaf cut-outs, ABC stickers OR Sharpie marker, paper clips, recording sheet, Do-A-Dot markers- one per child, fishing poles
 
Directions: Laminate your leaf cut-outs and write one letter on each leaf using the Sharpie marker or place one letter sticker on each leaf. Place paper clips on each leaf and put leaves in a tub or container of some sort in the middle of the table. Students use their fishing poles to “catch” the leaves and stamp the matching letters on the recording sheet with their Do-A-Dot markers. The recording sheet has a large leaf outline on it with all the letters of the alphabet written inside. Students use Do-A-Dot markers to mark the letters they have caught.

Fishing poles: 12 inch dowels, string, hot glue gun, round magnets

Tie the string to the end of the dowel and use the hot glue gun to secure it to the dowel. Next, hot glue the round magnet to the end of the string.

Learning Links

From Child Care Land: 

I found some of these in my classroom the other day and almost threw them away.  When played with independently, my students make chains and then swing them around like lassos.  However, I'm now glad I didn't.  I'm going to use them to make these:

Learning Links number matching:  Cards with numbers on them (can make them themed) or number
  words or dots etc.  Punch a small hole near the bottom middle of the card.  Students place the
  appropriate amount of links to the card.

Learning Links patterning: Take pictures of pre-chained pattern links.  Ask students to recreate.

Learning Links color sorting: Create link chains of each color.

Matching upper- and lowercase letters.

Alphabet and Number order: Alphabet or number cards with holes on each side.  Students link them
  together using the links.

Play Dough Literacy Mats

Ideas from KindergartenWorks:

Fun ways to use alphabet books found at Mr. Printables.

Alphabet Actions

A	act like an airplane
B	blink
C	crawl
D	dance
E	exercise
F	fly
G	growl
H	hop
I	itch
J	jump
K	kick
L	leap
M	march
N	nod
O	over
P	push ups
Q	quack
R	run
S	sit
T	twist
U	under
V	visit
W	wiggle
X	xylophone
Y	yawn
Z	zip

Alphabet Class Book

Our Class Alphabet

1.          Cut construction paper in half.

2.          Use one half page for each child.

3.          On each page glue the photograph of an individual child.

4.          Under the picture print the first letter of the child’s name.

5.          Under the first letter print the child’s first name.

6.          Repeat for each child in the class.

7.          Arrange the pages in alphabetical order.  It is all right to have a number of children with the same first letter in their names.

8.          Determine which letters are missing.

9.          Use the magazine or toy catalog to find colored pictures of objects that start with the missing letters and make a page for each letter, so that each letter of the alphabet has at least one page with either a photograph of a child or a picture of an object that starts with that letter.

10.      Read the children their “Class Alphabet Book” during circle time.  Encourage the children to “read” the book aloud: “A is for Allison, B is for Bill, etc.”  Make the book available for them to look at during playtime.

Placemats

From: The Mailbox

Here's a simple way to reinforce skills during snacktime and lunch. Every month have each student make a placemat. Laminate the placemats and then use a permanent marker to program each placemat with letters, numbers, or personal information such as the child's address and phone number. Throughout mealtime, ask youngsters questions about the information on their placemats.

Make several placemats.  On each one, include a different skill: letter, numeral, color, or shape naming, patterning, student's name, sight words, objects of different sizes or lengths etc.  Before giving a student a placemat, instruct him/her to name the letter/numeral/color/shape, what comes next in the pattern, read the sight word, name the biggest/smallest or shortest/longest object etc.

Sandpaper and Yarn

From: I Can Teach My Child




Use this to make shapes, numbers, or letters.  You can also sort by length or color!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

From 1+1+1=1


One mini book is for coloring…

The other is for reading and identifying shapes…I made a fold out alphabet (there’s also one with lowercase in the download)… A pocket with counting cards…Size sequencing bears…

And, my favorite…the Heads and Tails pocket…

You can find the Brown Bear files to download here!

Finding Letters in My/Your Name

Materials:

• Rice
• Small Tub
• Magnetic letters
• Name cards
• Sentence strip, if desired

Activity:

1. Before activity begins, hide letters from all participating students' names in a small tub filled with rice.
2. Ask students to find their name cards before beginning.
3. In turn, allow students to sift through and find a letter.  Instruct child to first name the letter and then decide if it is in his/her name.  
4. If desired, student can repeat "The letter ___ is/is not in my name."
5. If the letter is in his/her name, allow child to keep letter.  If not ask child to give it to someone who does have that letter in his/her name.  Instruct receiving child to say sentence, if desired.
6. Continue until all letters have been retrieved.
7. Instruct students to now put all the letters in order to spell his/her name.

Variation: Include all letters to give students more practice naming letters or when working alone.

Letter Work

These pictures are floating around on Pinterest.  I'm not sure who to attribute the originals to, but if you know...please tell me, so that I can give credit where credit is due!

MISSING LETTERS

LETTER SOUNDS

UPPERCASE & LOWERCASE LETTER MATCH

 

 

 

 

 

From: Chalk Talk: A Kindergarten Blog

Feed the Turkey

From: Pre-K Pages

Setting: Small Group, Literacy Centers

Objective: Alphabet Recognition

Materials: Turkey Beanie, magnet, glue (hot or E6000), magnet, magnetic letters, recording sheet (not pictured), Do-A-Dot markers.

Directions: Glue a magnet to the turkey’s nose using a glue gun, E6000, or similar. Give each child a recording sheet with the alphabet on it. Next, place the magnetic letters in the middle of the table, you could use a bowl or plastic container to hold them. Students will take turns holding the turkey and helping him “eat” the magnetic letters as pictured at left. When the turkey “eats” a letter the students may locate it on their recording sheet and mark it with a Do-A-Dot marker. You can find the upper and lowercase turkey alphabet recording sheets in the Thanksgiving Literacy Packet located in the printables section below.

Letter Boxes

From: I Can Teach My Child

Making letter recognition meaningful for preschoolers is crucial.  Getting your child to automatically recognize letters is great, but children will retain information much more once they have had a variety of experiences with those letters.  Making it fun and multi-sensory will ensure that they are understanding what they are learning.

1.  Here’s what you’ll need:  baby food containers (or other small containers) and letter stickers.  If you don’t have letter stickers, you can just use a sharpie and write the letters on the containers.

2.  Let your child put the letter stickers on each box. 

3.  Go on a scavenger hunt and start filling them!  Opening and closing the boxes is a great fine-motor practice.  This also services as a learning opportunity for sizes–whether things are too big or too little to fit in the boxes.

C for car…

and carrot!

4.  Continue with the other letters. 

5.  A shoebox would be a great place to keep the containers.  Empty them out every so often and let your child have a new adventure looking for things that begin with each letter.

*A variation of this activity for 5+ years could also include looking for letters in newspapers and magazines.

**Use caution when using these boxes around younger siblings (babies) who put small items in their mouths.  These should be put away in a safe place, away from reach of tiny fingers.

Question of the Day

Every Friday, at attendance time, put up question: "Does your name have a(n) (letter) in it?" with "yes" and "no" as the responses using the letter of the week.