Here’s what my son and I did for Letter A — we read about apples, ants, and anacondas; learned about our 5 senses, made fun crafts, enjoyed an apple taste test, and sang some fun songs!
Monday — A is for Apple
- Writing Practice: Write Uppercase A and lowercase a.
My son used this Letter A worksheet that I found on K5 Learning: https://www.k5learning.com/worksheets/kindergarten/tracing-letters-a.pdf
- Book: The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson. I love Lauren Thompson’s books! (Try her Little Quack series if you haven’t’ discovered them yet — they are too cute). In this apple pie book, the cumulative and lyrical text create a sweet story that teaches preschoolers about nature and the apple’s life cycle.
Check you local library for this book — it’s a great read 🙂 You can also buy it on Amazon. I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program, so if you buy an item through my site’s links, I get a small portion of the sale to help support this website.
- Craft: Tissue Paper Apple — supplies needed are a piece of paper, pencil, glue stick, and tissue paper in red, green and brown (or orange).
I drew a rough outline of an apple on a piece of paper and then I cut red tissue paper into 1-inch squares.
My son and I both scrunched up the red tissue paper squares together — great for preschool fine motor skills. After we had a lot of of tissue balls, my kiddo covered his apple shape in glue and then glued the tissue all over his apple.
After covering then entire apple in red tissue, we scrunched up green tissue to make a leaf. My kiddo added the green leaf, but thought his apple was still missing something. He decided to add an orange stem (I didn’t have brown tissue paper).
His apple turned out pretty cute! We really enjoyed doing this craft together and I love that he added his own creative ideas with the stem.
- Song: preschoolers love to sing! Don’t worry if your singing voice isn’t great because your child will be having too much fun with you to care. Sing Raffi’s Apples and Bananas song. It is the perfect combination of silly verses and phonetic vowel sounds for preschoolers. Find it here on YouTube. We love this song in our house and find ourselves singing it all of the time 🙂
Tuesday —
- STEM: 5 Senses — we have 5 senses: sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound. Let’s use our 5 senses on an apple! (1) What color is the apple? Do you see any marks on the apple? (2) what does the apple feel like? Is it smooth or rough? (3) Take a sniff. Does the apple have a sweet smell? (4) Take a bite and taste the apple. Is it yummy? (5) What do you hear? Can you hear crunching sounds when you chew your apple?
- 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 periodically find him air writing his letters all on his own.
Wednesday — A is for Ant
- Writing Practice: write uppercase letter A. I found a worksheet from AtoZteacherstuff.com:
- Book: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Luli Gray. This book has bright, exciting pictures that will capture preschoolers’ imaginations! Based on the Aesop’s Fable of the same name, this book shows that it is important to work hard and plan ahead, but that it is also important to be a good friend and enjoy some fun! Check you library, or get it on Amazon.
- Craft: Egg Carton Ant — supplies needed are a paper egg carton, washable paints, paintbrush, pipe cleaners, sharpened pencil, scissors, and googly eyes.
Cut your egg carton down so that you only have 3 humps. (Add a quick science lesson by explaining that ants are insects and insects have three main parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. Ants have 6 legs, 2 large eyes, and 2 antennae.)
Pick a paint color and then paint your egg carton. (We painted ours on top of a paper plate to catch all of the paint drips/spills/wild brush strokes!) Let your egg carton dry.
Once completely dry, add your googly eyes to your ant’s face.
Now you have to choose pipe cleaners to make 6 legs and 2 antennae. You will need 2 pipe cleaners to make the legs and 1 pipe cleaner to make the antennae. I thought it would be fun to make rainbow colored legs, but my son stuck with his favorite color, blue 🙂
We used a sharpened pencil to punch the holes for the antennae and legs. We stuck the legs through the holes, and bent the pipe cleaners slightly inside the carton to hold the legs in place. Then, we made “feet” by bending the ends of the pipe cleaners and we were excited that our ant actually stood up!
- Song: Sing The Ants Go Marching. This song is a preschool favorite — it’s catchy, you get to say “boom,” and counting is involved!
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.
- Worksheet: Color the boxes with letter A
- Apple Taste Test: We went to the grocery store and bought different kinds of apples and we had an apple taste test when we got home! It was fun to try to different apple flavors and compare them to each other. Our favorites were Honeycrisp and Fuji.
Friday — A is for Anaconda
- Writing Practice: write lowercase letter a. We used this worksheet from AtoZteacherstuff.com:
- Book — We read I Saw Anaconda by Jane Clarke with illustrations by Emma Dodd. This a cumulative, lift-the-flap book about an anaconda that eats everything around it. The snake ends up getting sick — ick!
My son says this anaconda book is awesome because it has so many flaps! Every page is interactive and he giggles as the anaconda eats everything in sight. Plus, he learned about some new animals (a stork, piranhas, and a skink).
- Craft — Spiral Plate Anaconda. Supplies needed are a paper plate, bubble wrap, green, washable paint, rolling pin, googly eyes, pink paper, and scissors. I found this craft on one of my favorite crafts sites: https://www.craftymorning.com/paper-plate-snake-craft-using-rolling-pin/
For this craft you will use the bubble wrap as a stamp to make the snake’s scales. I am a big fan of out-of-the-box paintbrush ideas, so using bubble wrap to make the snake scales is a super cool idea.
- Song — Sing along to The Letter A Song by ABCmouse.com: https://youtu.be/beT_KcblaBI
