It’s learning letter Y week! Letter Y is for some of my favorite things– yarn, one of my favorite colors (can you guess which one), and for a fun toy!
Monday — Y is for Yarn
- Writing Practice: write uppercase Y. Try this free worksheet from Doozy moo: https://doozymoo.com/pdf/uppercase-letter-tracing/uppercase-letter-y-alphabet-tracing-worksheet.pdf
- Book: We read Mac Barnett’s Extra Yarn. My son is a big fan of Mac Barnett’s books and Jon Klassen’s illustrations!
This is a beautiful story about a girl who set out to add color and happiness to her town by making things with yarn from her magical box. The box has an endless supply of yarn which allows the girl to knit things for everyone and everything. A mean count demands the magical box, but the girl refuses to sell it at any price. The count steals the box, but in the end, the box finds its way back to the girl. Kindness and good deeds are rewarded. Check out this book from your library, or you can buy it on Amazon here.
- Craft: Y is for Yarn — supplies needed are cardboard, scissors, tape, and yarn.
I cut a Y shape out of a cardboard box for my son to wrap with yarn. He picked out his yarn and was excited to start wrapping it around his Y.
We taped down the end of the yarn to the back of the left side of the Y and he started wrapping. He wrapped the yarn all the way down the tail of the Y.
Then my son wrapped the yarn back up the Y, and then when he got to the top of the top of the tail, he began wrapping the yarn up the right side. When he was happy with his Y, I cut the yarn and we taped the end to the back of the Y.
- Song: sing along with Bounce Kids to the Letter Y Song: https://youtu.be/L8PdL8ydI28
Tuesday — Y is for Yak
- STEM: Melting Ice Cubes — Grab some ice cubes for the science experiment. We are going to see which ice cubes melt the fastest — the ones in the sun or the ones in the shade. Ask your child to guess which will melt the fastest. Why do they think that?
Take the ice cube tray outside. Pop out a couple ice cubes and put them on a plate. Put the plate in the sun.
Leave the rest of the ice cube sin the tray and put the tray in the shade.
Which ice cubes melted the fasted? Talk about heat and how it causes it things to melt. Don’t forget to eat your blueberries after they thaw 🙂
- Air Writing: Ask your child to hold up a hand and trace letter shapes with their finger in the air. Ask them to do both uppercase Y and lowercase y.
- Book: Read There’s a Giraffe in My Soup, by Ross Burach, a super silly book about zoo animals, including a yak!
- Worksheet: Y is for Yak letter tracing and coloring worksheet.
Wednesday — Y is for Yellow
- Writing Practice: write lowercase letter y. Free printable PDF for letter tracing: lowercase y.
- Book: Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. This a great friendship story for preschoolers, and a fun way to learn about colors as well.
- Craft: Paint mixing! I gave my son a paper plate with some red paint, blue paint, and yellow paint on it. Then he took his paint brush and got some blue and painted into onto a clean paper plate and then he took some yellow and added it to the blue to make green. We got out another clean paper plate and let him mix red and yellow to make orange. On the third clean paper plate, he mixed red and blue paint to make purple. Then we made up a story about “Little Red” and “Little Yellow” together.
- Song: We sang along to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. My husband is constantly singing and humming this song so my son already knew the chorus. Beware, this song will get stuck in your head 🙂 Here’s a YouTube link to the song: YELLOW SUBMARINE SONG
Thursday — Y is for Yellow
- 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.
- Activity: Y is for Yellow — In this seek and find activity, find something yellow that you can wear; something yellow you can eat; something yellow you can play with; something yellow that makes you happy; and a yellow book!
- Worksheet: Color all of the boxes with the letter Y y.
Friday — Y is for Yo-Yo
- Writing Practice: practice writing both uppercase and lowercase letter Yy.
- Book: We read Yo-Yo Man by Daniel Pinkwater. In this story, a boy learns the value of “practice makes better” (both in yo-yoing and spelling) and becomes great at doing yo-yo tricks! Check your library for this book and other’s about yo-yos.
- Craft: Yo-Yo Decorating — letter Y is a hard one for books and crafts, so I drew a yo-yo for my son to decorate. Download and print off my yo-yo template and let your child decorate it with crayons and glitter glue too.
- Song: Here’s My Yo-Yo, a song I made up for this lesson. Sing this to the tune of Are You Sleeping?
Here’s my yo-yo,
Here’s my yo-yo.
It goes up and down,
It goes up and down,
Spinning round and round
Spinning round and round
On its string,
On its string.
- Worksheet: Y is for Yo-Yo letter tracing and coloring.