Alphabet Activities & FREE Worksheets for Kids: Letters P-T

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

Hello and welcome to the ALPHABET ACTIVITIES post for letters P through T!

Like all of our previous alphabet activity pages, you’ll find letter-themed meal ideas, letter-shaped construction paper crafts, letter sorting activities, free printable worksheets, and so much more!

If you haven’t been to the ALPHABET ACTIVITIES PAGE yet, be sure to check that out in order to see our past alphabet activities and worksheets.

Welcome to LETTER P DAY!

First off, let’s start with a few suggestions of fun food you can make or incorporate into meals:

Peaches
Pears
Pomegranate
Pineapple
Prunes
Pecans
Pine Nuts
Pistachios
Peanuts
Peanut Butter
Paprika
Potatoes
Purple Carrots
Peppers
Pumpkin (possibly these Maple Roasted Pumpkin Seeds)
Parmesan (possibly this Garlic-Infused Parmesan Popcorn)
Pecorino Cheese
Provolone
Pasta
Prawns
Pork
Peas
Peppermint (possibly these Peppermint Polar Bear Paws)

Here are a few activities you may want to try:

Letter Shape Construction Paper Craft: Make a puppy, penguin, panda, or pig out of pieces of paper scraps in the shape of a P. (See past alphabet activities for inspiration and examples, such as D is for Dragon.)
Letter Sorting Craft: Cut out 2 pelicans (a pair of them) and sort onto them capital and lowercase letter Ps that have been cut out in the shape of tiny fish. You could also cut out 2 pencils out of construction paper and sort letters onto them. (You can print capital and lowercase letters in a simple font like Arial, or you can draw them neatly. See this example for D is for Dolphins.)
Draw a parrot or peacock and have your Little glue feathers to it.
Create a phantom (ghost) out of white chalk on black construction paper. (Which will look kind of like these Valentine Chalkboard Hearts.)
Walk a pirate plank by drawing one in chalk on the sidewalk that leads to some grass the Little can jump into, or by shaping one out of painter’s tape that leads to a small ball pit or mini trampoline.
Do some finger painting by painting with your palms.

Now for the free worksheets! To get them, simply click on the links listed below this preview:

P is for Puppies and Pizza

Welcome to LETTER Q DAY!

Here are a few suggestions of fun food you can make or incorporate into meals:

Quiche
Quaker Oats (oatmeal)
Quinoa
Queso Fresco
Quark (type of cheese that’s easier to find in Europe than the US)
Quarter Pounder (or make your own burger and give it the McD name)
Quesadillas
Quail
Quick Bread
Quince Tart

Here are a few activities you may want to try:

Letter Shape Construction Paper Craft: Create a queen, quokka, or quilt out of paper pieces and assemble into the shape of a Q.
Letter Sorting Craft: draw or cut out 2 quails or quartz crystals, and sort cut-out capital and lowercase Qs onto them.
Play a game of going from one room to another in your house quietly and quickly.
Create a quiz out of some of the letters you’ve already learned by holding up letters (possibly puzzle pieces) and have your Little call them out.
Make a quilt out of construction paper. Cut pieces of different colored paper into 4 squares or rectangles and punch holes around the outside of the shape. Use yarn to “sew” them together into a quilt.
Go on a quest. Perhaps make a scavenger hunt for items in your own kitchen or yard. You can make a map ahead of time to help with the quest.

Now for the free worksheets! To get them, simply click on the links listed below this preview:

Q is for Quick Queen Bees

Q is for Quoll

Welcome to LETTER R DAY!

Here are a few suggestions of fun food you can make or incorporate into meals:

Raspberries
Raisins
Red Peppers
Romaine Lettuce
Ranch Dressing
Ravioli
Ratatouille
Risotto
Rice
Ramen
Rigatoni
Red Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Reuben Sandwich
Ribs
Rice Pudding
Red Velvet Cake
Root Beer Float
Rice Krispie Treats
anything Raw or Roasted

Here are a few activities you may want to try:

Letter Shape Construction Paper Craft: Make a raccoon, red panda, rattlesnake, or reindeer out of pieces of paper into the shape of a big R.
Letter Sorting Craft: Make 2 robots, rockets, rhinos, rays (stingrays or manta rays), rabbits, or rats and sort out some cut-out capital and lowercase Rs onto them.
Hold a race where you run, preferably outdoors.
Rotate the R. Put out a capital and lowercase R, whether printed on paper or from a puzzle, and when you call out the word “rotate,” your Little can rotate them. Like: “Rotate BIG R,” then “Rotate LITTLE R!”
Read your favorite books. Try to find a rhyming book to read.
Create a recipe with your favorite foods. Or follow one of your favorite recipes from a cookbook.
Use a ruler to measure different objects around your house, especially if you can find objects that start with the letter R (like a rubber ball or rope) or are red.

Now for the free worksheets! To get them, simply click on the links listed below this preview:

R is for Rabbit

R is for Rabbits

R is for Raccoons

R is for Racing Rabbits

R is for Rainbow

R is for Red Rhino

R is for Rhinos and Radishes

R is for Roaming Rockets

R is for Rosebuds

R is for Running Rat

Welcome to LETTER S DAY!

Here are a few suggestions of fun food you can make or incorporate into meals:

Strawberries (possibly Strawberry Butter or Soft Strawberry Sandwich Cookies)
Scrambled Eggs
Salsa
Salad
Spinach (especially Spinach Stuffed Shells)
String Beans
Sweet Potatoes (like these Cinnamon Sweet Potato Slices)
Summer Squash
Sushi
Shrimp
Salami
Steak
Swordfish
Schnitzel and Spaetzle
Spaghetti (even Spicy Spaghetti)
Soup
Sweet and Sour Sauce
Scones (like these Sweet Honey Scones)
Spritz (like these Spritz Butter Cookies)
Sprinkles (which can be added to anything from cookies to milk cups to fudge)

Here are a few activities you may want to try:

Letter Shape Construction Paper Craft: Make a snake, squirrel, or swan out of paper pieces into the shape of a letter S.
Letter Sorting Craft: Draw or cut out two swords, sharks, snails, or stegosaurus and sort onto them capital and lowercase letter S’s that you’ve printed or drawn.
Play Simon Says.
Sing your favorite songs.
Learn to skip stones.
Maybe skip while you sing.
Make Speckled Shell Stegosaurus hard-boiled eggs, like these Frozen Cracked Ice Eggs.
Slither like a snake on the ground. You could trace out a path with painter’s tape in the shape of a letter S if you like. This will be easier on a wood or tile floor. Beware of rug burns on carpet!
Make Snail Slime, kind of like the Green Goo and Green Glitter Goo from Letter G Day.
Play with a Slinky, and shape it into a letter S.
Play soccer, perhaps by trying to kick the soccer ball into an area marked by a letter S sign.
Search for shells at the beach.

Now for the free worksheets! To get them, simply click on the links listed below this preview:

Welcome to LETTER T DAY!

Here are a few suggestions of fun food you can make or incorporate into meals:

Tomatoes
Tamarillos
Tangerines
Tangelos
Toast (perhaps this Tropical French Toast or this Teddy Bear Toast)
Tortilla
Tacos
Teriyaki
Tempura
Tofu
Tabbouleh
Turkey (roasted, sure, but what about turkey cookies?)
Trout or Tuna
Tagliatelle (a type of pasta)
Texas Toast (my kid’s favorite garlic bread)
Tatar tots
Tabasco sauce
Tarts
Truffles (one of my favorites is this Ginger Cookie Truffle)
Tiramisu
Taffy
Toffee

Here are a few activities you may want to try:

Letter Shape Construction Paper Craft: make a tyrannosaurus rex, tiger, turtle, or train out of paper pieces into the shape of a letter T.
Letter Sorting Craft: print, draw, or cut out two trees, teapots, tomatoes, or tacos and sort onto them capital and lowercase letter Ts.
Put on some temporary tattoos.
Play toss with a tennis ball.
Do some of your alphabet activities inside of a blanket tent in your living room, or a camping tent outside.
Set out some letters, such as from a puzzle, and have your Little touch them as you call them out. Like, “touch the T! Now touch the G!”
Teach each other how to do something new, like signing the letter T in ASL or BSL, or how to do the yoga pose for turtle.
Tap out a thunder tune by mimicking the sound of thunder on a drum or upside down pots and bowls.
Have a tea party along with some alphabet cookies, especially cookies shaped like the letter T.
Tear up some paper to create a letter T by gluing the pieces onto some construction paper.
Create a tower out of cardboard boxes or blocks. Make pathways to drive toy trucks between the towers. Or make the tower in the shape of a T and drive the toy trucks around it.

Now for the free worksheets! To get them, simply click on the links listed below this preview:

T is for Tigers and Tomatoes

T is for Trains

T is for Trimming the Tree

T is for Turtles

That’s it for today!

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Don’t forget to Pin the images on this page to Pinterest to help you find it again!

Check out the ALPHABET ACTIVITIES PAGE to find a list of all of the letters.

And please share with me on Facebook if you have any photos of you and your Littles enjoying your alphabet days!

Have fun!

11Apr2016

Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

Letter J Alphabet Activities FREE Printable Worksheets from Roaming Rosie

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter J. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell or reproduce them.

J is for Jaguar

J is for Jeep

J is for Jelly Bean Counting

J is for Jelly Beans

J is for Jolly Jesters Juggling

J is for Juice

J is for Jupiter

And here is a picture of the two Jelly Bean worksheets:

J is for Jelly Beans FREE printable Alphabet Activity Worksheets from Roaming Rosie

For the first one, I cut out little kidney bean shaped jelly beans from construction paper. For the second, we used real jelly beans, which are usually pretty easy to find year round. I tried to stick with the colors that come in most packages.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our Letter J projects:

Letter J Alphabet Activities

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

Roaming Rosie Signature

11Apr2016

Letter J: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

Letter J Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Welcome to Letter J Day!

If you haven’t read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities, you should start there.

Don’t forget to check out the Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids, too!

Here are all the activities we did:

J is for Jellyfish Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

First, as always, we did our construction paper craft. But instead of one big letter that we decorated, we did a bunch of little letters.

I had cut out a pile of Letter Js and a rounded top so that my kids could make their own jellyfish with the letters as tentacles.

And googly eyes. I swear they get more excited about the letters that need eyes…

J is for Jack o Lanters Letter Sorting Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Then for our Letter Sorting activity, where they needed to separate out the capital and lowercase letters, I went with jack o’ lanterns.

My kids were still kind of little at this point in out Alphabet Activities, so I had cut out the pumpkins and faces ahead of time and all they did was glue the finished jack o’ lantern to the paper before gluing on the letters.

Now that they’re older, I might still have cut out the face pieces but I would have let them make the faces themselves first, probably from a selection of eyes and mouths.

J is for Jump Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Back to the chalk!

I love that my girls love being outdoors, so chalk letters are great way to get them moving.

I drew a bunch of big Letter Js to represent the word “jump.” And then we did just that – jump from J to J.

J is for Jell-O Sensory Bin Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

This was a TON of fun for my girls.

The night before Letter J Day, I made a couple of boxes of Jell-O in a big plastic bin and I threw a bunch of toys into it that started with the Letter J.

I didn’t get all fancy with worrying about where the toys would stay once the Jell-O solidified. I just tossed ’em in. Most of the toys floated to the top, but they were still partially submerged and, thus, still had to be dug out by little fingers that were eager to get messy.

J is for Jello Sensory Bin Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

We did it outside to keep the mess out of the house, but I suppose you could do it on a tile floor somewhere if you covered it in a tarp or with a tablecloth.

We made a pile of the toys in another bin (the sand castle-shaped container you see at the bottom), and then we rinsed off everything with the hose when we were done.

The toys we used were probably ones I found in the dollar store, but here are some examples of the plastic Jet party favors, craft Jewels, and plastic Jacks that are similar to what is pictured above.

I would check the party sections of your local store for similar items that are sold as party favors, and the craft section for the jewels.

J is for Jelly Beans Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

We did a few worksheets, as always. There were my typical letter searches and mazes and such, but the jelly bean ones were the favorites of the day.

I wonder why….. (nom, nom, nom)

You can find these jelly bean worksheets, along with others, on my Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids post.

J is also for Juggling!

So we watched the video above, which my girls love because they enjoy watching kids doing things (plus he’s really good), and then we tried juggling with some light balls we had around the house.

We weren’t terribly successful, except at producing lots of giggles. :)

J is for Jelly Toast Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Gotta love jelly toast!

I cut out the J shapes with our letter cookie cutters, then slathered the toast in some butter and strawberry jelly.

J is for Jamaican Jerk Chicken Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

I didn’t want to make a big, complicated dinner in between our projects, so I kept things simple with this chicken.

I marinated a package of boneless thighs in some Jamaican Jerk Marinade that I picked up in the supermarket and threw them on a grill pan. Easy Peasy. (Don’t forget to have the Little Ones seek out the Letter J on the bottle of marinade!)

That’s it for Letter J! Except for the free printable worksheets I made, which you can get here:

Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets

I’d love for you to share if you’ve done any of these projects with your little ones!

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

Roaming Rosie Signature

10Apr2016

Letter I: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Then make sure to check out all of the Letter I Alphabet Activities too!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter I. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell or reproduce them.

I is for Ibis and Iced Tea

I is for Ice Hockey

I is for Icee

I is for Igloo and Iguana

I is for Iguanas Identifying Ice Cream

I is for Insects Investigating

I is for Insects

I is for Instruments

Here are a couple of the completed worksheets:

Don’t forget to check out all of our accompanying Letter I Alphabet Activities! (Where I also talk more about the Icee worksheet too!)

Please follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

10Apr2016

Letter I: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

Welcome to Letter I Day!

If you haven’t read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities, you should start there.

Don’t forget to check out the Letter I: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids, too!

Our construction paper project was making an island.

The island itself, in the shape of an uppercase I, is cut from brown paper. I made some little palm trees ahead of time (I free-handed those and they must have been close enough because my daughter knew what they were ;).

They we used some craft sand to represent the beach. You can sometimes find craft sand in the same place where they sell artificial flowers, or just in the craft section.

We probably should have tried gluing the trees down first, but my daughter was excited about the sand. We used white glue (not glue sticks) for this project, though, so that helped with getting the palm trees to stick to the sand once the glue below it was dry.

For our Letter Sorting, we made inchworms.

And watched the Sesame Street version of the Inchworm Song:

Then we tried to make marshmallow igloos.

This particular attempt didn’t work. We spread white glue all over a Styrofoam dome, and tied to stick mini marshmallows to it.

They fell off.

It occurred to me a few days afterwards that what we should have done instead was to slather the dome in white cake icing (icing is an I word!) and stick the marshmallows into that. That would have totally worked. And if I owned a dome cake pan we could have made a cake interior for our marshmallow igloo.

Next time.

Or, you know, you could just turn a bowl upside down and slather that with icing. There are actually plenty of options.

Either way, I would suggest having a separate (small) bowl of marshmallows available for snacking, to help keep the kiddos from eating the ones for the project.

Especially if you try it with glue.

The I is for Icee worksheet is available on the post Letter I: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids. I made this one because paint is always a big hit with my kids.

You glue down some course salt or raw sugar and, once the glue is dry, add some watercolor paints.

We used kosher salt which was attached via glue stick.

It’s a fun way to play with texture. Just make sure you shake off all of the excess salt once the glue is dry and before you paint. That way you won’t end up with pieces of salt in your watercolor tray.

Oh – and this project is meant to represent an “Icee,” which is a crushed ice drink. Just in case that’s not a thing where you lived and you were wondering why I spelled “icy” incorrectly. ;)

I found this really cool ice cream shaped chalk at the dollar store, so we did some chalk drawings.

We often do practice our letters with chalk, but it was even more exciting this time around. :)

Then, we used our ice cream shaped chalk to trace around some letters we made out of sticks we found in the yard.

This was a lot of fun, especially since my girls love puzzles. I still have these in our Folder Games binder.

You can find similar things by doing an internet search, but these are a color matching worksheet with ice cream cones and an insect shadow matching worksheet which I got from Busy Little Bugs.

Above are two of the worksheets I made for Letter I Day which are decorated with little foam stickers we got at our local dollar store.

Of course, you could always use any type of sticker or stamp for these, or just make little sketches.

This was a map I found on a random internet search. There’s a very similar one at Free US and World Maps.

First we found all the states that began with our letter of the day, colored them and the letters in the title green, and then my daughter colored the rest of the map however she felt like it. (We also underlined the “island” part of Rhode Island.)

Well, that’s it for the Letter I Activities!

Remember to stop by Letter I: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids to get all of the printable worksheets I made.

I’d love for you to share if you’ve done any of these projects with your little ones!

Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

9Apr2016

Letter H: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

If you’re new here, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter H. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell or reproduce them.

H is for Handprint Hedgehog

H is for Hearts

H is for Hippo

H is for Honeybees Harvesting Honey

H is for Horse

H is for Hyena

And don’t forget to check out all of our Letter H Alphabet Activities!

Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

9Apr2016

Letter H: Alphabet Activities for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

Letter H Alphabet Activities and Worksheets for Kids from Roaming Rosie

Welcome to Letter H Day!

If you haven’t read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities, you should start there.

Don’t forget to check out the free Letter H: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids that go along with these!

Here are the activities we did for Letter H:

H is for Hamburger Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

We made a construction paper Hamburger, and although my daughter didn’t put it together quite as I had conceived she would, we still got the point across. :)

I had cut out an H in brown to represent the burger patty, and there’s a bun in orange, a tomato in red, lettuce in green, and some Swiss cheese in white.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

I also made a lowercase H and cut out some pieces in white that vaguely represented a horse’s head, tail, and hooves.

And my kids always love combining glue and construction paper, but if you throw in a googly eye then it’s really a party.

Letter Sorting H is for House Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

For our Letter Sorting, I cut out two shapes that looked kind of like houses and drew on some doors and windows and roof shingles. My daughter was pretty young when I did this, but she’s old enough now that I’d let her draw the doors and windows herself if we did it again.

Then she put the lowercase Hs on one house and the uppercase on the other.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Making Hidden Messages was pretty fun. This was the example I did for her, and I can’t remember why I don’t have a picture of the one she did. I think I didn’t photograph as well.

Anyway, you draw designs on a white piece of heavy or construction paper with a white crayon, and then you paint over it with water colors.

The crayon resists the paint and your designs show through.

You could always prep some hidden messages for them, kind of like I did. I used Letter H words: Hi, Hello, and Howdy.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Hopscotch is always a big hit in our house, and it’s great for practicing numbers.

This time I drew a big and little H at the start of the Hopscotch.

You could also make a version that’s like our Power Word Hopscotch, and fill the squares with H words (Hi, Hello, Hand, Happy, etc.) instead of numbers and have your child shout out the words as they hop over the board.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

This was SO much fun. After discussing how “hula” started with H, we pretty much went right into dancing and dressing up.

During the summertime, it’s pretty easy to find hula skirts and leis at the local dollar stores around here. Or you could try a party store or check online.

Then we danced to some videos, including The Hula Song from The Lion King (just for laughs):

Then we watched the He Mele No Lilo scene from Lilo & Stitch:

And finally, we watched a more traditional He Mele No Lilo. My girls really loved this and we watched it over and over, dancing along with them. My older daughter also spent some time studying the little girls and the way they moved:

Then it was back to our projects…

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

I found these little wooden helicopters in the craft section of Walmart.

I think I paid about a dollar apiece for them.

After we painted them, we attached some of the little foam letter stickers that I had picked up in the bargain section of Target.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

This is one of our favorite games.

This is the version that looks just like the one I had when I was a kid, but there is also this version which has red balls for some reason.

You can also see our LeapFrog Fridge Phonics magnet in the background (which is the older version of this one and kind of similar to this bucket set), because – of course – we had to discuss how both Hungry and Hippos started with H before we went on a crazy marble-eating rampage.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

This was a fun activity for practicing fine motor skills.

I found some plastic hard hats and the dollar store and we hammered some gold tees into a piece of Styrofoam with a rubber mallet.

This one definitely needs close supervision because you may have to hold the golf tee steady for them at first or (preferably) you may want to stick it in the foam a little before allowing them to hammer it further down.

But it was fun. And we still play with the hats sometimes. :)

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

It just wouldn’t be Letter H day without a discussion of my favorite play.

My girls are quite familiar with Shakespeare and a few of his plays, and one of these days I’ll get around to posting some of the Hamlet crafts and recipes we’ve done, but for now you can still see some of the kid-friendly books about him.

The one pictured above is from the very first Usborne book I ever purchased (which has led to a serious obsession with Usborne, but that’s a little off topic). It’s called Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare, and is filled with gorgeous paintings and a story version of Hamlet and five other plays that are short enough to read to children.

Or, if you’d rather have a box set with five separate hardback books, including Hamlet, you could get The Shakespeare Gift Collection instead.

Depending on the age of your kids, there’s also the Shakespeare Sticker Dressing, recommended for age 5 and up, where you can dress up characters from the plays (like Hamlet) with stickers, and then there’s also the incredible Where’s Will book that’s like a “Where’s Waldo” book but with characters from Shakespeare’s plays (like Hamlet). The second book is recommended from ages 7 and up (and I really bought it for myself anyway….) but even my three-year-old enjoyed searching with me.

You can read more about my Shakespeare book collection by clicking here.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

This was lunch: leftover ham chunks and pieces of honeydew.

Food is one of my favorite things, so, you know, I try to add in whatever I can to our Letter Days.

Letter H Alphabet Activities from Roaming Rosie

Which also includes Hones Scones! I can’t remember if we baked these on Letter H Day or a different day that week, but they are quick to make.

Here’s my recipe:

Sweet Honey Scones

Well, that’s it for today! Was a bit of a full day though, wasn’t it?

To get all of the free printable worksheets I made, head over to my post:

Letter H: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

As always, I’d love for you to share if you’ve done any of these projects with your little ones! And please let me know which were your favorites!

Follow me on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest to see my latest posts.

Have fun!

Roaming Rosie Signature

5Apr2016

Power Word Hopscotch

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities by Rosemary Lynn

We recently did some Power Words Hopscotch to help my daughter practice her vocabulary.

I drew a hopscotch board on the driveway in chalk and filled it with some of her Power Words (also known as Sight Words). Most of the words were ones she kept missing, but I also threw in some she knew well as encouragement.

One of the reasons we did a game like this – with her calling out each word as she jumped to it – was because she’s supposed to know these words on sight instead of having to sound them out each time.

And my daughter is always in a hurry, always rushing through her reading, so she often doesn’t take the time to sound things out anyway. She just guesses. One of the most important things in the world to me is that reading is fun for my kids, so instead of sitting her down and having her get frustrated and upset at herself, I’ve been trying to incorporate more learning activities that include movement and laughter.

Because for as much as I read to her every day, and as much as she would ask me to read to her, she wasn’t in a hurry to learn herself. To keep up with her classmates, though, she needs to practice. So we’ve been playing “games” instead of just sitting in a chair and going over flashcards again and again. ‘Cause that’s even boring for mommy….

This one was a suggestion from her teacher and it worked out really well. The chalk lasted for days (it didn’t rain) and every day for a week she would ask to go out and play hopscotch, including each time we were getting in and out of the car for school.

Plus, she called out the words for her younger sister, so they could both play. Extra practice for the big sis, and a heartwarming moment thrown in for good measure. :)

I also love this concept of hopscotch for learning because of the versatility.

You could use this for other vocabulary words, of course, but also for just letters for the younger crowd. For example, if you’re working on some Alphabet Activities with your preschoolers, you could practice your alphabet by putting letters instead of the traditional numbers inside the squares.

How do you practice vocab with your kids?

Happy learning!

26Jul2015

Zebra Zoo Cookies

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

Aren’t these CUTE???

I didn’t come up with the idea all on my own – I have my daughter’s last years preschool teachers to thank for it! At the end of the school year, they sent home a “cookbook” of all the recipes they’d made. My daughter was excited to flip through it and I let her pick out which recipe she’d like to remake first.

She picked the Zebra Zoos.

Now, they actually did theirs a little differently, so this is my version.

Below are all our store-bought ingredients that make this super simple to set up. It’s the type of project where you can buy everything ahead of time and stick all the stuff in the back of the pantry until a rainy day.

You’ll need:

Graham Crackers

Vanilla Cake Icing

Animal Cracker Cookies

Black Candy Melts OR Chocolate Chips

The first step is to spread the icing over the graham crackers.

You don’t need a lot. And you don’t need your Little Ones overdosing on sugar, so you may need to gently offer to help them smooth it out a bit. :)

Melt the candy melts in the microwave according to the package directions within a small baggy (preferably freezer weight), then snip the corner off to drizzle the candy back and forth over the white icing.

This will make the appearance of the zebra stripes, which is where the treat gets its name.

Why did I use candy melts instead of chocolate chips?

First of all: the black candy melts are darker than the chocolate chips. Black instead of brown, so more zebra-like. Also, I wanted the flavor of them to match the icing. The candy melts have a vanilla flavor, like white chocolate.

[hint: you can usually buy the candy melts at Michaels with a coupon.]

Then attach a few cookies by pressing them into the black candy melt stripes before the stripes have a chance to set. (So, right after you draw on the stripes.)

Then enjoy!

Oh….. and it would behoove you to remember to coat your workspace with waxed or parchment paper first. Just sayin’.

3May2015

Letter G: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids

Posted in activities for kids, alphabet activities, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

If you’re new to our Alphabet Activities, please read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities first!

Here are all of the printable PDFs for the Letter G. They are free for home and classroom use, but please don’t sell or reproduce them. Click on each link to download or print the worksheet.

Have fun!