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 B Activities

Letter Bb Activities

N completed a variety of activities to establish knowledge of the letter B.  Repetition is very important for memorization.  N repeated the name of the letter B and the sound of the letter B 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
                  Large B @ preschoolpalace.org
                  Do-a-Dot @ www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Pre Writing Practice tracing B to b

Stamping B's

B is for Bandaid

Do-a-Dot Paint Bb

Counting Beads

Additional Bead Activities:

1) roll a dice and string the number of beads
2) string the number of beads according to the date
3) string a pattern
4) string according to the number of letters in your name (family members' names)
5) string according to the number of family members you have

B is for Butterfly Color Book

Each box contained a butterfly to color a specific color.  N worked on this throughout the week.  It seemed to be a lot to color in one setting.

Do-a-Dot B

N decided to use each color once and then repeat them.

Tracing Bb

N is still learning correct writing skills.

Letter Bb Hunt with Do-a-Dot paints

N had to distinguish between Bb's and other letters including Dd's. 

Miss K using Do-a-Dot

K loves to do schoolwork with her big sister. 

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

Letter Ring

My oldest daughter is in Kindergarten.  To help learn her sight words her teacher made up a stack of word cards, punched holes in them, and placed them on a loose leaf book ring.  My son and his friend like to flip through her cards, even though they can't read them.  So I made up a set of letter cards for each of them.  I used card stock, a hole punch, a paper cutter, and a loose leaf book ring.  You can find the rings in office supply stores.  Cut your paper into rectangles (or any shape of your choice-be creative!).  Punch a hole in the same place on each card.  Write your letters.  I chose to do capital and lower case.  You can do just the capital or just the lower case.  You could also type them up on the computer and print them out-but this took me less than 5 minutes to do!  Now L and his friend B each have a ring of letter cards to flip through!  This ring of letters can be use for many activities besides just flipping through them.

Other Letter Ring Activities:
~Flip to a letter and write that letter. 
~You (the parent) say a letter and have your child flip to it. 
~You (the parent) make a letter sound and see if your child can flip to the right letter.
~Laminate your cards and your child can trace the letters with a dry or wet erase marker.

Other Ring Card Activities:
~Use color paper to make color word cards (red paper with the word RED, yellow paper with the word YELLOW-you get the idea).  Your child will learn to recognize the color words!
~Number cards with the name of each number written underneath (write the number 1 and then spell the number o-n-e under it.  Your child will learn to recognize the names of the numbers as well!
~As your child progresses you can make sight word cards, too.
~Name cards with the names of each family member.  You could even make them larger and print off pictures of each family member and then write their name underneath.  Your child will begin to recognize everyone's name!  Kids love to find their name written somewhere!  L loves it when he finds the letter L or any other letter in his name!

BE CREATIVE!  HAVE FUN!  DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND YOUR CHILD!

Simple Skills Activity

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L worked on 4 skills today:  cutting, patterning, letter order, and letter formation.

1) L cut strips of paper into small squares ( I had drawn lines on the paper for him to cut).
2) L chose a patter of blue, yellow, green and laid it out on the floor.
3) L glued the squares into his workbook (I helped him make the frame).
4) Together we wrote the letters in ABC order and glued the card in the frame.  This particular activity helps with the order of things.  He writes one letter, I write the next letter, and then he has to figure out what comes next. 

Letter/Number Recognition Test

Type out a chart with all 26 letters (you choose if you want capital and/or lower case) and numbers-we did 1-10 for now.

Slip the chart into a protective sheet.  Have your child use a dry erase marker and circle letters and numbers as you give them.  

This is a simple way to test if your child recognizes all the letters and numbers.  You can keep track of the ones he/she doesn't recognize so you can work on those.  This can also be used for letter sounds when your child is ready.  Another way to involve your child in the test is to use a deck of flashcards.  Have him/her flip one over, say the letter and sound, and then cross it off of the chart. 

This activity reinforces letter and number recognition.

Letter Match-Up

Using the letter tiles from a previous activity I spread them out for L to match up.  The task was to match the orange letter to the green letter.

After working for a few minutes L seemed overwhelmed with all the letter tiles. So we decided to separate them into two piles.  Now he could see all the orange letters and all the green letters.   

After matching up all the letters, you can take it a step further and have your child put them in ABC order.

Eventually I will make lower case letter tiles and have L match up his capital letters to the lower case letters.  

This activity reinforces letter recognition.  If you complete the last step it also reinforces ABC order.

Letter Matching

For this activity I made a capital and lowercase letter chart in L's workbook:  3 columns and 9 rows.  In each box I wrote the letters in very small writing.  L will match up his letters from the stickers to the letters in the box. 

I also used my small stickers from a previous activity to write the letter sets.  I cut the sheet of stickers in half and used three halves for this activity.  This way he only had 9 letter sets at a time to work with (Aa-Ii, Jj-Rr, and Ss-Zz).

His dinosaur friend kept watch for him.

L working on matching his letters.  In the future I won't write the letters on the paper, but encourage him to figure out which letter comes next.  He still has to sing his ABC's a lot to figure out which letter comes next.  If working with his ABC's has taught him anything, it has at least taught him to say J-K-L-M-N-O-P (before those letters were unrecognizable).

All done!  He worked very hard on this and was proud of his work! 

Make Your Own Letter Tiles

Letter Tiles

Materials:

1) wooden nickels (from craft store)
2) mod podge (regular glue would work, but this dries super fast!)
3) two different colors of punch out letters (I had some on hand from my scrapbooking days, but you could also use letter stickers and skip the glueing-or just write the letters on the tiles)
4) spray acrylic sealer (not pictured)

I had all these materials on hand except for the wooden nickels.


To Make:

1) Glue the letters on using the mod podge
2) Let them dry and then brush over them again with mod podge
3) Let them dry and then spray a couple of coats of acrylic sealer on them (outside), allowing them to dry between each coat

There are many different activities that we will be doing using these letter tiles, so be watching for those. I also plan on making two other color sets so that we can play games with big sister.

Letter Matching

L is working on matching lower and upper case letters.

Materials:
1) 52 circle magnets
2) garage sale stickers
3) sharpie
4) cookie sheet


To Make:
1) write the upper case letters on one color of sticker and the lower case letters on another color of sticker
2) attach stickers to magnets
3) place magnets on tray

Match away!


L has learned most of the pairs but it helps him to sing the alphabet song as he does it.
This activity reinforces letter recognition and fine motor skills.

(Side note: After making this activity we learned the circle magnets were too strong and would either stick to each other or would flip over. If I were to change this activity I would attach the magnets to a different material-a clothespin or a wooden tile with the letters written on them. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but L got frustrated very easily with the magnets.)

ABC Order

L is working on putting his letters in alphabetical order.

Materials: small sticky labels, marker, paper
To Make: Write the letters on the labels-make sure you mix them up.
Variation: Use lower case letters, or a mixture of both


L looks for the next letter and sticks it to the paper.


Easy and fun!
This activity reinforces letter recognition.

ABC Order

L is putting his letter tiles in ABC order.

L is singing his ABC's and finding the letter that comes next. This activity reinforces letter recognition.


Now that they are in ABC order, I had L use the second color of letter tiles to match to the first set, once again reinforcing letter recognition.



L said he was finding each letter's "friend"! I thought that was a cute way of putting it!