Create Your Own ABC Book

We are only a month away from school starting.  I have a little one headed to Kindergarten this year.  In fear that she may have forgotten many of those need to know before kindergarten concepts we are reviewing a letter day until school begins.

Each day we create a page for our ABC book.  We practice the sound and letter recognition and then brainstorm words that begin with that letter.  She loves to draw and write so that's what we are doing (plus is sneaks in additional letter practice).  We are going to combine all the pages to make her very own book! You can download our ABC book template and create your own book.  If you don't want to draw like we are you can cut and glue pictures, rainbow write the letter, fill in the letters with different materials, or use construction paper to create adorable letter crafts.

Download Free Printable Here

In addition to our book we are doing an activity or two that corresponds with that letter.  For the letter A we tried the apple volcano science experiment. 

 And used the smash art technique to create aliens.  You know where you paint one half of your picture and then fold the paper together. Squish it flat so when you open it you have a duplicate image on both sides of your paper.  We planned to add googly eyes and use sharpies to finish our aliens but they thought their pictures were perfect and didn't want to :)

Letter B day we were busy so we made our page in our book and bounced a beach ball on the trampoline.

You do not have to do a letter a day.  Maybe you want to do a letter a week or use your book through out the year.  As you start a new theme add some of your new vocabulary words to the book.  Its open ended so you can really create and use the book to fit the needs and style of learning for your family or class.

Apple Tree Counting Mat

*this post contain affiliate links*

 We are working on all things apple and letter A.  My kids had so much fun with the coconut tree counting mat that I thought we would carry that activity over and use apples instead.  

They love these counting mats! I love that they are learning to recognize their numbers, count, 1 to 1 correspondence, and work on their fine motor skills.  

For this activity your little one is going to place the correct number of apples in the tree aka yellow, red, or green pompoms or you can roll up some playdough to make apples.  

Draw a card and place it in the box.  Using tongs or hands place the correct number of apples on the tree.  Tongs are an awesome way to develop those fine motor skills.

The free download includes one apple tree mat and cards from 0-20. 

Download your copy here.

You can find our Coconut Counting Mat here and more apple themed activities here.

Adorable graphics from Mommyish For Teachers, Instruct and Inspire and fonts by Hello Literacy

A is for Apple Free Tracer Page

I have a cute freebie for you today.  This page is perfect for practicing writing the letter A.  It goes perfect with an apple theme or any time you need some writing practice.  It's also a fun coloring page.  You can have your kids rainbow write the letters on top or just color them.

Download Here

You can find more apple and letter A activities here.

Adorable Graphics and Fonts used with permison from Kimberly Geswein Fonts & Jen Hart Design.

Penguin Number Hunt

We have been working on our new Arctic Unit and will be sharing all of our fun activities soon! Today is actually Penguin Awareness Day and goes right along with our theme (you can find our January calendar full of fun holidays here).  

I thought I would pop in and share one of our penguin activities a little early in case you need something fun to do :)

This Free Download (located at the end of this post) includes these adorable number cards (1-10) all ready for you to print and cut.  I printed mine on card stock and laminated.  We are using them for a few other activities so I wanted them durable.

 Hide them around the room and let your little one go on a penguin hunt.

After you find them you can use this cute tracker to match up the numbers.  They can be colored or crossed out.

We like to laminate ours so we can reuse it.

Adorable graphics from Prettygrafik design, and Krista Wallden-Creative Clips. Fonts from Hello Literacy

You can Download your Free Penguin Hunt Activity here!

A for Angry Bird

Here's a fun post from our old blog.  If you kids like Angry birds then they might enjoy some of these fun learning activities.

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We made an angry bird out of the letter A.

 

 

practiced writing skills (preschool section)

math skills

and graphing skills (kindergarten section)

We also worked on Rhyming words and fractions

drew our own angry birds sorry this link is old.  She now has one called wacky birds that would work. 

I have a few more activities we didn't get to that I will post later.  You can also find more ideas on my Letter A pinterest board

A is for Apple Preschool Theme

We had so much fun with theme!  I have to apologize, I did a terrible job at taking pictures this week.  We did so many activities and when I went to upload pictures for this post I realized I forgot to take pictures of half of them.  Don't worry I'm still share everything we did.

Our letter A poster used on our preschool board.  We talked about lowercase and upper case letter A and drew both in the air.  We practiced the sound and pointed to each picture saying "a a apple" or "a a alligator."  (download at the end of this post)

Letter A apple tree.  To make the apples I clipped a cotton ball on the end of a clothes pin.  The idea was to use it to make polka dots.  The girls thought it made a great paint brush and most of their tree and paper turned red.  I think they enjoyed it.

Their very favorite activity was "making apple pies."  Its homemade cloud dough with a little apple pie spice.  We added cookie cutters for a little extra fun.  You can find the cloud dough recipe here and a ton of other great apple ideas.

Apple Person Craft.  I wanted to practice using glue and maybe a little cutting for this activity.  I had a basic apple shape, leaf, and stem cut out.  I gave them some wiggly eyes, markers,  and construction paper. I showed them the general idea of where things went and told them they could decorate their apple person however they wanted.  They went crazy cutting their apple with the shape scissors and some of them ended with not much of an apple left.    

Apple Hunt:  Sorted by size and color.  Apples are included in the download at the end of this post.  

The apple baskets are not needed but so cute and found this cute pack from Teaching Differently.  I printed and laminated 3 of them.  

I actually printed the entire game. Its a great way to practice following directions, colors, and sizing. The kids loved it.

Match game:  We  play a match game after we read a book about Johnny Appleseed that I found in this adorable Johnny Appleseed pack from Royal Baloo.  Its in the prek pack page 3.  Print 2 on cardstock.  

What color is my apple coloring book:  Also from the same pack-prek pages 11-21

Apple Muffins-Recipe from Simple as That

We made an apple volcano (sorry I didn't get any pictures of this one) but we found and followed the directions from this post.

Letter A Book (download at end of post).  Print, cut a long the center line and staple.

Finally we walked through an apple orchard.  

Download here

A is for Apple is such a fun theme and there are so many ideas that I wish we could have spent another week on this theme.  You can find lots more ideas on our Letter A Pinterest Board. 

A is for Apple

I get a little excited when the school year starts.  Not because my kids are going back to school but because it provides a little more structure.  My little one is now ready to start preschool and I'm excited to put a bigger emphasis on that each week.  We'll be starting next week but in the mean time I thought some of you might be getting ready as well. A for Apples is a pretty common  and fun theme.  Below is an old post from when my older girls were little.  We'll be revisiting this theme in a couple of weeks but this might get you started.

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This week we work on practicing the letter A. Here are some of our fun projects we did.

Apple Shakers (idea here). It was a real quick and fun activity that both girls enjoyed. I had red plates and Aubrey added "seeds" (black beans), we taped on a stem and leaf, then taped another red plate on top.







Then Shake!!!!
A apple tree and song found at Katie's Nesting Spot. Aubrey cut out strips of green paper, glued it on a tree I drew, I then cut around it, I also cut out a capital A. Aubrey then glued the tree top and A to a piece of paper to create an apple tree. Here is the fun song we sang (great to practice numbers)

Five Red Apples in an Apple Tree FingerplayFive red apples hanging in a tree (hold up five fingers)
The juciest apples you ever did see.
The wind came along and gave an angry frown (flutter fingers)
And one little apple came tumbling down. (hold up five fingers and bring one down)
Continue counting down with: Four red apples...etc


Apple Printing (idea found here) This was a really fun activity that Aubrey wanted to do for a long time. I sliced an apple in half. We used one color per half. Just dip apple in paint and stamp on paper.




Don't they look cool!a apple with worm- I wanted Aubrey to recognize lowercase a also so I came up with this little activity (Looked a lot cuter in my head but oh well). I cut out 2 lowercase "a"s, stems, leaves, and worms. Aubrey glued it all together and colored the worm. After I thought it was missing something so we added glitter. It was a big hit.Popsicle stick activity (idea found on Totally Tots)- I gave Aubrey a bunch of Popsicle sticks and showed her how to make the letter A. We then moved one stick down to make a triangle. This was her favorite activity. We practiced with many different letters, numbers, and shapes. By the end of the week I asked her to make the letter A (with out showing her) and she was able to. She was so proud of herself.

Additional Activities -Writing her name (sheet protector for her to practice with), Apple Puzzle (also on Totally Tots) probably to hard but she still liked it, Apple Book (found here), Letter tracer (here) again put in a sheet protector so we can reuse it, A template (here) used to color, A book (I can't find it but I know it is from this site).