A is for Alphabet

It’s the start of another preschool year! I will be gearing our activities to my Just-Turned-3-Years-Old daughter. We’ll be going back to the basics … colors, letter names & sounds, shapes, cutting, coloring, playing. She loves dress-up and baking too, so we’ll do plenty of that.

• Sing the ABC Song

• Read “ABC: A Child's First Alphabet Book” by Alison Jay … the pictures in this book are beautiful. I loved it. I loved how we could pick out several things that started with each letter and also follow a little story linking each one together. I’m going to buy this one to add to our own library.

  1. Have the kids point to the ABC letters on the front and name each one.

  2. Say the letter sound several times as you read the book and look for items that match that letter sound.

  3. The pictures are so interesting. Let the kids enjoy each one!

• Read (or watch) “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault … I couldn’t find our copy of this book anywhere today, so YouTube came to the rescue. It was kind of nice to change up the format and watch it online.

• Hands-On Chicka Boom Boom Tree
  1. Spray paint 3 tin cans with brown paint (empty, washed & dried)
  2. I used hot glue to glue them together to make a tall trunk.
  3. Let the kids help cut out leaves! I was going to do this myself, but it was a great fine-motor, cutting activity! My 3-year-old ended up cutting her whole paper into little tiny pieces. She did great!
     • Give the kids a piece of green cardstock & a pair of scissors
     • Show them how to cut a leaf shape.
     • Cheer them on no matter what shape they cut out
     • I put a small dab of hot glue on the top of the tree and they added their leaves (just be sure to warn them about the HOT glue.)
  4. Have the kids add magnetic ABC letters to the chicka boom boom tree.
  5. When the trunk is full of letters, say, “Chicka Chicka, oh, no!” and let them tip the tree over and slide the letters off. My girls did this over and over a few times.

• ABC Find & Stick
  1. Use a package of ABC stickers. I found these at Michaels for about $2.99 before coupon. There were two sets in each package.
  2. Randomly write A-Z on a piece of paper. NOTE: You could have your older preschoolers write the letters themselves.
  3. Help the kids find the ABC sticker to match each letter on the page.
  4. Say each letter name & sound together as you work.
  5. TIP: My 3-year-old had a hard time finding a few of them, so I would point to an area of 3 letters and tell her it was one of those. She still got to decide which one it was, but it was much more doable for her.

• ABC Sugar Cookies … it was my two older boys first day of school, so we decided to make these ABC cookies for our after-school treat.
  1. Use your favorite sugar cookie dough recipe.
  2. Roll out the dough and use ABC cookie cutters to make lots of letters.
  3. Bake & frost
  4. You can get the ABC cookie cutters here.

• ABC blocks … while we were waiting for our cookies to bake, I pulled out these wooden ABC blocks. I got two sets here. I love the size and colors and simplicity of the font. The letters are both upper and lowercase.
1. Stack them.
2. Knock them down.
3. Point out letters & say the sounds.
4. Find the letters in their name.
5. Sort by color.
6. Find matching letters. I was impressed that my 3-year-old noticed that the lowercase d and b looked alike, but were not exactly a match.

Have a FANTASTIC preschool year!