Learning Letter E through books, writing practice, crafts, STEM, songs, worksheets, and fun! Letter E is pretty exciting. We learned that E is for elephant, egg, and envelope!
Monday — E is for Elephant
- Writing Practice: write Uppercase Letter E. We used this free worksheet from A to Z Teacher Stuff.
- Book: We read Ellie by Mike Wu, a story about a sweet elephant who shows that it doesn’t matter what old or how big you are, everyone can help in their own way. All of the animals are worried about losing their home as word spreads that the zoo is closing. Ellie, a baby elephant is worried too, but what can she do? Ellie puts her painting talents to use to help the zoo. Soon people are buying her paintings and the money made goes to keeping the zoo open!
- Craft: make an Elephant Stick Puppet! I love stick puppets because they are so easy for preschoolers to make, hold, and fun playing with 🙂 Print off my free elephant craft template (it’s even holding a paintbrush) and make your own stick puppet to go along with the story. In addition to the template, you will need crayons, scissors, glue, and a craft stick. I used the jumbo sized craft, but the skinnier one should work just fine.
- Song: Sing along to this song, Baby Elephant. It is to the tune of Baby Shark, so your preschooler should love it!
Tuesday —
- STEM: Shape Design — using plastic cups and craft sticks, see what shapes you can make. This hands-on way to make shapes is not only fun, but it really brings shapes to life in a tangible way for your preschooler. Place the cups upside-down to be the bases. Form your shapes with the craft sticks.
- Air Writing: Ask your child to hold up a hand and trace letter shapes with their finger in the air. I was skeptical of this at first, but my son really got into it and I found him air writing his letters all on his own.
- Book: We love Mo Willem’s Elephant and Piggie series and we read them a lot 🙂 Since we were working on letter E, I took advantage of the opportunity to read about Gerald the Elephant in Elephants Cannot Dance.
Like all of the books in the series, Gerald’s seriousness is offset by Piggie’s whimsy and giggles ensue. In this story, Gerald believes elephants can’t dance, but Piggie is determined to show that everyone can dance. Willing to try, Gerald attempts to follow Piggie’s instructions, but seems to always end up doing the opposite what Piggie says. Preschoolers will giggle at Gerald’s dance attempts. Just when Gerald thinks it is hopeless, new friends emerge who want him to teach them how to dance the “Elephant!”
Wednesday — E is for Egg
- Writing Practice: write lower case letter e. We used this free worksheet from AtoZ Teacher Stuff for practicing letter e.
- Book: An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni — In this book three frogs discover an egg. The frogs believe they have found a chicken egg, so when the egg hatches and a green, scaly emerges, the frogs call it a chicken. Your preschooler will laugh at this case of mistaken identity! Leo Lionni is not only a great storyteller, but his illustrations are also fantastic. Preschoolers will love the reunion between mommy alligator and baby alligator, or mommy and baby chickens as the frog say!
- Activity: Egg Maracas — This is a fun and easy activity to make together. In just a few minutes, you can have your own musical instruments!
All you need to make your own egg maracas are 2 fillable, plastic eggs, pinto beans, 4 plastic spoons, and tape. Within minutes, our project was done and my son excitedly shook his maracas and danced around the family room.
- Song: we sang along with Super Simple songs to And The Green Grass Grew All Around.
Thursday —
- Salt Tray Writing –cover the bottom of a shallow tray or pie tin with table salt. Your child can take one finger to trace letter shapes in the salt. Practice both uppercase letter E and lowercase letter e.
- Worksheet: My son was really good at identifying capital letter E, so we focused on learning lowercase letter e for this worksheet. Can you spot and circle all of the “e” letters?
- Book: We read Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham to go along with our “E is for egg” theme. If you aren’t familiar with this one, its a silly, rhyming story about Sam who runs around trying to convince a friend to try green eggs and ham because they are delicious. Sam chases his friend through houses, on boats, and on trains until they both end up wet and tired. Finally the friend agrees to try green and ham, and guess what? he loves them! A funny story about trying new things 🙂 We ate green eggs to go along with this book!
Friday — E is for Envelope
- Writing Practice: Practice writing uppercase letter E and lowercase letter e. We used a worksheet from K5 Learning: https://www.k5learning.com/worksheets/kindergarten/tracing-letters-e.pdf
- Book: I couldn’t find an envelope book, so we read one of our favorites, It Came in the Mail by Ben Clanton.
In this story, the little boy desperately wants to get something in the mail. He checks the mailbox constantly! Unfortunately the mailbox is always empty. The little boy comes up with a brilliant idea to send a letter in hopes, he will get something in return. Not knowing who to write to, he writes a letter to his mailbox. Turns out this is a magic mailbox and this mailbox responds to the little boy and gives him a dragon. How cool is that!?! Overtime he gets too much stuff. Time for a new plan. The little boy realizes that other kids want to get mail too, so he asks his mailbox to help him send some of these gifts to other kids. Soon kids all over the world are receiving gifts through the mail and the little boy comes to the realization that it is fun to give, as well as receive.
- Craft: No Sew Envelopes: I had some leftover red felt, so we turned it into 2 no-sew envelopes. Wanting my son to be able to help make them, we used fabric glue to hold our envelopes together. My son and I each drew a picture that we put in each other’s envelope!
- Song: sing along with ABC Mouse to The Letter E Song. My son loves the ABC Mouse songs so much. He sings them all of the time. Check out The Letter E Song on YouTube.
Thank you!
Thanks for learning letter E with us! We enjoyed reading about elephants and eggs and had a great time making envelopes. I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to help cover the costs of this site. If you buy an item through one of the links that I’ve posted, then I get a small percentage of the sale (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂