Letter W

Are you excited to learn about letter w? W is an important letter. Do you know that watermelon, worms, and whales all start with letter w? Let’s grab some books, craft supplies, and a pencil and dive into learning letter w!

Letter W

Monday –– W is for Watermelon

  • Writing Practice: write uppercase W and lowercase w. I found a great free worksheet from K5 Learning for writing practice. Grab your pencil and let’s start writing letter w.
  • Book: read The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli. Pizzoli is an in-demand illustrator, so you will probably recognize his artwork style. This is a story about Crocodile, who loves, loves, loves watermelon! He accidently swallows a watermelon seed — oh no! Crocodile begins to worry about a watermelon growing in his stomach. Yikes! Will vines grow out of Crocodile’s stomach? Will Crocodile turn pink? Read this book and find out. Check out your local library for a copy of The Watermelon Seed, or you can buy it on Amazon here.
  • Craft: Paper Plate Watermelon: to make your own watermelon craft, you need a paper plate, green and dark pink construction paper, glue, and black finger paint.

1) First tear up pieces of green and pink paper. This is fun for kids because they don’t get to tear things apart very often!

2) Cut a triangle shape out of a paper plate to be your watermelon slice.

3) Glue the green paper along the rounded edge of the plate. Then glue the pink paper on the remainder of the plate. Let your project dry.

4) Using washable, black finger-paint, have your child add the seeds with their finger.

  • Song: sing along to Down by the Bay (where the watermelon grows). Raffi’s version is available on YouTube.

Tuesday —

  • STEM: We made homemade watermelon lemonade. My son had a blast juicing the lemons and it was neat for him to see how lemonade is made. Check out this recipe so you can make watermelon lemonade too!
  • 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.

Wednesday — W is for Worm

  • Writing Practice: write uppercase W. I found this free uppercase letter W worksheet on AtoZteacherstuff.com — this is a cool site that allows you to make customized worksheets for your preschooler.
  • Book: Snail and Worm by Tina Kugler. Get ready to laugh with Snail and Worm! These two best friends will crack you up as they explore the world around them. Each book contains three short stories filled with jokes, hilarious misunderstandings, and friendship. You can’t help but fall in love with these two.

Check your library for Snail and Worm books. So far author Tina Kugler has made 3 books, but we are hoping for more to come! My son and I enjoyed them so much that we ended up buying them. They are available on Amazon here.

  • Craft: Play-Doh Worm — make a wiggly worm out of your favorite color of Play-Doh and googly eyes.

Pick your Play-Doh color. Take out about half of the Play-Doh from its container.

Roll the Play-Doh between your palms until it because a long line — this will be your worm.

Now you get to position your worm(s). We made an inchworm and a wriggly worm.

Add googly eyes to complete your worm!

  • Song: I was curious if a kids’ worm song actually existed, and it does!!! There is actually a song called Herman the Worm by The Learning Station. It’s available on YouTube.

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.
  • Book: We read another worm book, Superworm, by Julia Donaldson. My household is a big fan of Julia Donaldson and we read her books a lot. In this beautifully illustrated book, Superworm saves his friends from peril. But when Superworm gets trapped by the bad Wizard Lizard, will worm’s friends be able to save him this time?

To find out, check out this book from your library. Or, you can buy it on Amazon here.

Friday — W is for Whale

  • Book — We read A Snail and a Whale by Julia Donaldson. In this rhyming book, snail yearns to explore, but is hindered by its size. When a whale offers to help snail take a journey, it is a dream come true. But whale gets stuck and it is up to the small snail to help its new friend. It goes to show that no matter who small you are, you can still help others.

Be sure to see if your library has this one. You can also buy it on Amazon here.

  • Craft: Spouting Whale — this turned out super cute and my preschooler really enjoyed making this.
Spouting Whale

Supplies needed are white and blue construction paper, pencil, scissors, blue tissue paper ( 1″ x 1″ squares), glue stick, white school glue, and googly eyes.

1. I drew a whale shape on the blue paper and cut it out.

2. My son used a glue stick to glue the whale onto the white paper. Then he rubbed the glue stick all over the bottom of the paper and glued on the blue tissue paper squares to make the ocean water.

3. Together, we wadded up the blue tissue paper squares to make the water spout.

4. Using the white school glue, I added glue dots in the pattern of the whale’s water spout and then my son added the wadded the tissue.

5. To complete his craft he added the googly eyes.

  • Song — Sing along with Super Simple Songs to A Sailor Went to Sea. It’s available on YouTube.