Tracing Book

 Almost each school day N works in her tracing book.  It is simply a 3-ring binder with pages I have printed off from various sources slipped into sheet protectors.  She uses a wipe off marker to do her work.  Here are some of the pages she works on:

pre writing lines

Source:  abcjesuslovesme.com

Letter practice

 Source:  3dinosaurs.com

Numbers

I added a dot with a highlighter to help N know where to start.  She tends to want to start at the bottom.

Source:  lilbunnyhops.com

Shape Tracing

 I have pages of each common shape in the book and N works on whatever shape we might be working on.

Source:  confessionsofahomeschooler.com

More number tracing and number words.

 Source:  confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Number tracing

 Source:  learningpage.com

lines, dashes, and t's

One of the skills preschoolers are assessed on is if they can draw a straight line, a dash, a "t" and some common shapes.  They will also be asked at different times throughout the year to draw a person including at least 3 identifiable body parts (arms, legs, eyes, etc.)

Source:  preschoolpalace.org

Letter Tracing

I have these pages from A-Z all in the same sheet protector.  My plan is to switch them out as we work on each letter.  I also go back to letters we have done before just to keep N familiar with them.

Source:  momto2boys24.blogspot.com

N does not do everything everyday.  I vary it from day to day, depending on what letter, number, or skill we are working on each day.  Or if I need to set up an activity I use some of the pages as busy work.

You can easily create your own book for your little one to work!  You could laminate your pages, but sheet protectors are cheaper!  

Letter A Activities

Letter A Activities

N completed a variety of activities to establish knowledge of the letter A.  Repetition is very important for memorization.  N repeated the name of the letter A and the short sound of the letter A several times during each activity.  It is also important to include upper and lower case letters together when working with individual letters. 

Standards

Common Core Standard:  
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1a Print many upper- and lowercase letters.

 

Kansas Early Learning Standard:  

CL Standard 4:  Demonstrates emergent writing skills

Resource:  ABC printables @ www.3dinosaurs.com

A is for Apple

N is practicing proper position of the crayon and staying in the lines.

Using the letter A stamp to fill up the apple.

Proud of her work

Outlining the letter A with Apple Jacks

We went on a letter hunt in our neighborhood.  N found letter A's on trash cans, for sale signs, street signs, and company names stamped in the sidewalk.

Writing the letter A with chalk.

Apple Painting

Spelling Notebook

A (my 6 year old) is in 1st grade.  She now has daily and weekly homework, including spelling tests.  Because A is reading at a higher level her teacher sent home the 2nd grade sight word list to have her practice spelling them.  In 2nd grade they have to be able to read these words and spell them.  So I created a notebook for her to use at home to practice these sight words on her own time.  I didn't want it to be something she had to do, but rather something she could do when she wanted to (since she is in school all day).

Making great use of my label maker!

Inside (I did have to remind her how to use the lines on the page so that her words weren't so big!)

These are the different ways she can practice the words. There are numerous other ideas out there, these are just the ones I chose for her.

1st list of words-she chose to "hug" her words.

How this works:

Each day I taped a list to a page-I used the same list for one full week (or 5 days).  She practices the words each of the four different ways the first four days, and then on the 5th day she can choose her favorite way.  Then I left one page blank (without a list taped to it) so that I can test her on those words. 

This is an activity for grade school students and reinforces handwriting, reading, and spelling.

Pre-K Practice Sheets

L is now attending preschool 4 half days a week.  I have decided to make some practice sheets for him to do at home when he wants to do schoolwork.

Materials:

1) card stock
2) contact paper
3) wet or dry erase marker

Numbers and Number Words

Color Words

Lowercase Letters (o-z on back)

Uppercase Letters (O-Z on back)

First and Last name

Side note on the first and last name-I taught L how to write his name with all capital letters.  Which is fine, they are usually the easiest to form.  But the second he stepped into his new classroom his name was written with the capital "L" and the lowercase "andon".  I'm thinking I should have done this to begin with.  Also, his school has adopted the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, which is okay because I taught him using Zaner Bloser handwriting, not D'Nealian.  I would suggest finding out which handwriting curriculum your student's future school uses and try to teach that.

Create your pages, print on card stock, cover with contact paper (or laminate them) and use a wet or dry erase marker to practice forming the letters, words, and name.

This activity reinforces letter and number formation, number word recognition, color word recognition, fine motor skills, and writing skills.  This is such an easy and cheap activity to make! My next thought is to punch holes in them and store in a 3-ring binder.  Then L will have a binder full of dry erase practice pages!

Other variations could be:

~ a page with shapes to trace (with the names)
~ a page with random dotted lines to trace
~ print any tracing page off your favorite website 

Once your student is reading:

~ sight words
~ family names
~ days of the week
~ months of the year
~ print any practice page off the internet (laminating reduces the wasted paper-although we have wasted our fair share of paper)

The possibilities are endless!  See my favorite websites for more ideas of pages to print and laminate!

By the way, all of my kiddos LOVE having their own activities and places to keep their activities.   When I make a new activity and we find a place for it I make sure to reinforce ownership of it (meaning they are to take care of it, use it correctly, and put it away correctly).