Incorporate alphabet and phonetic sounds into your daily routine with this letter of the day activity! This will help children make connections with letters and phonetic sounds.
How It Works
Put letters into a bag and ask your child to pull one out. This will be your letter of the day. Incorporate that letter into your daily activities. Ask your child if they know what letter they got. If not, same the letter and ask them to repeat it back to you.
Let’s pretend you grabbed letter A:
Ask your child if they can think of any words that start with letter A (offer suggestions if they cannot think of anything).
Find a toy that starts with letter A. Say the name of the toy and stress the A sound.
Tell your child that for snack today, you will be eating foods that start with letter A. Eat a yummy apple together.
Call a family member or a friend who has a name that starts with letter A.
Look around for things that start with letter A and ask your child to repeat the word to you. Maybe you can find some ants outside.
Together, think of other letter A activities that you can do.
Tips
To begin with, choose letters that will be easy for you to incorporate into your daily routine. Just place a few in the bag and leave the harder ones for when you have more time to prepare.
You can write the letters on pieces of paper and put them in the bag. If you have alphabet fridge magnets, alphabet blocks, or some other tactile alphabet toy (like these sand molds), put those in the bag. Once your child grabs a letter, ask them to trace the shape of the letter and say the name of the letter.
There are so many amazing ocean animals that we usually don’t get to see unless we go to an aquarium. Some of these animals live in the icy, cold waters at the North and South Poles, while others live in the warm ocean waters. Visit your library and check out these ocean animal stories to discover who lives in the ocean and whether they like warm or cold habitats.
My family loves this is fun rhyming story (with great pictures) about a grumpy fish who realizes that friendship can really brighten our day. It’s written sing-songy and in our house, we really get into this story, with the whole family singing the refrain and acting out the “blubs.” The Pout Pout Fish has many sequels so you can continue to read about Mr. Fish and his underwater friends. The original is my favorite, and I love reading this one out loud at storytime 🙂
My son got this book for his birthday and it is AWESOME! It has fantastic pictures that were formed from clay by artist Jeanette Canyon that perfectly compliment Marianne Berkes’ sing-songy text. You and your little one will want to study these pictures over-and-over again to get all of the details incorporated onto each page. This book introduces a variety of cool sea creatures. It also lends itself well to movement activities that preschoolers will love to do. At the end, there is a seek-and-find activity to search for all of the sea creatures
This is great story about best friends who just happen to be a shark and a minnow. The minnow, Nugget, starts school with the other little minnows and learns that sharks are big, scary predators out to eat minnows and they most definitely cannot be friends. Fang is devastated by the news, and tries his hardest to keep their friendship in tact. It doesn’t look good for their friendship, until Fang saves the little minnows and teaches them that sharks and minnows can be friends. What is 10 minnows plus 1 shark = 11 awesome friends!
In this beloved children’s story, the Rainbow Fish learns what it means to be a good friend. The Rainbow Fish has the most beautiful sparkly scales and it was so very proud of its shimmery scales. Other fish want a sparkly scale too, but Rainbow Fish doesn’t want to part with them because they make it such a pretty fish. Hesitantly, the Rainbow Fish shares just one sparkly scale with a little fish. Soon everyone wants a pretty scale. Turns out Rainbow Fish likes sharing. Now the ocean is full of fish with glimmering scales! Even though the Rainbow Fish has only one sparkly scale left, it feels happy having shared and being a good friend.
We discovered this book at our library and it is perfect for young shark fans. It is a cute story about a girl who is obsessed with sharks and she is convinced that she is getting a real one for her birthday! She shares all of her favorite shark facts with her dog as she weighs the pros and cons of which shark species would make the best pet.
Oona, a mermaid, finds a lost baby beluga whale and sets out to help reunite the baby with its family. Heading north to the icy waters of the Arctic, Oona, her best pal, Otto, and the baby whale brave storms and other dangers. Illustrator Raissa Figueroa does a fantastic job of showing the underwater plants, and real life animals who inhabit the artic. Seals, orcas, and narwhals can be seen in the cold northern waters, as well as on the floating ice. The land pictures are just as stunning as the underwater portrayals, showing the beautiful northern lights and the snowy landscape.
This is a super cute picture book about a shark and an octopus looking for some love. You will giggle your way through the story reading the silly ideas these two friends come up with to get the beachgoers to give them hugs and kisses. In the end, the two friends realize that they don’t need hugs and kisses from the beachgoers because they have each other to exchange hugs and kisses with — awww!
Raffi turned some of his best-loved songs into books, including Baby Beluga! This book, illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Ashley Wolff, features a busy little beluga whale and many other animals that live in the Arctic Ocean. Read this book and find out what the little whale and its friends do all day! The picture of the baby beluga back with its pod for nighttime snuggles is especially sweet.
I love this rhyming story about ocean animals! Each animal gets its own little poem that tells something interesting about them. This book covers so many different types of sea creatures, from huge blue whales to small barnacles! Which one is your favorite?
My son loves this book! It is a true story about an octopus named Inky, who escapes from an aquarium in Australia and makes its way back to the Pacific Ocean. We learned a lot about octopuses from this non-fiction picture book, and we were fascinated by Inky’s journey. My son was so excited when he learned that Inky liked playing Legos just like he does! Out of all of the books written about Inky, this one is our favorite. Sy Montgomery is a gifted storyteller and we were absolutely fascinated by this amazing octopus. I check out lots of library books for my son and I to read together, but this is one book that we felt that we needed to own. We truly love this story and read it over-and-over again.
Disclaimer:
Thank you for reading ocean animal stories with us! Check your local library for these and great books to read together. To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program and I provided affiliate links to the books I listed. If you buy an item through one of my links, I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for support. Happy reading!
Who wants free worksheets for their preschooler? I’ve got a super cute pack of the The Very Hungry Caterpillar worksheets that are free to download. You can print them over and over again (for personal use) so that your child can practice writing their alphabet, numbers, and have some counting fun!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a children’s classic! This picture book is a favorite many times over! This is a must read if you haven’t read it yet. Borrow it from your local library, watch this read-aloud from Brightly Storytime, or buy it on Amazon so you can read over and over again.
I love theming my books with worksheets, so here are 9 very hungry caterpillar themed worksheets for your preschooler! Included are alphabet tracing ( 2 pages), number tracing, fill in the missing numbers, counting, I Spy, spot the differences, identify sizes; color fruits page, and follow the line worksheets.
Preschoolers will love learning to count, practicing their ABCs, and working on their fine motor skills!
More Fun – Crafts and STEM!
Add some STEM fun into your little one’s learning with this adorable The Very Hungry Caterpillar Magna-Tiles set. This is the coolest building set! Children get to bring the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to life while engaging their eye-hand coordination, understanding of magnets, and spatial awareness — plus they are stimulating their creativity. This building set is so much fun and perfect for families looking to add more STEM activities into their little one’s play as their are a lot of shapes and towers to be made!
I’ve compiled all of my spring worksheets here for you to quickly access! Each worksheet is a free printable PDF. These spring worksheets are perfect for incorporating into your Easter, Vegetable Garden, Flowers, Bugs, and Rain & Rainbow themes! I have lots of other worksheets that are free if you are looking for more: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/worksheets/
ALPHABET
–Rainbow Tracing: trace the letters in the word “rainbow” and then color the picture.
–Raindrop Alphabet: trace all 26 uppercase letters in the raindrops.
–Easter Bunny Words Tracing: trace all of the letters in the words Easter Bunny and then color the pictures.
–Easter Egg Letters: practice making all 26 uppercase letters with this fun letter tracing worksheet.
MATH
–Butterfly I Spy: count how many of each butterfly you spy and write the number in the box.
–Carrot Counting: count how many carrots are in each box and then circle the number.
–Easter I Spy: how many of each Easter picture can you spy?
Salt tray writing is a fun way for preschoolers to practice making their letters and numbers! Little kids love to touch stuff, so let’s let them with this fun activity! All you need is a tray/pie tin/round cake pan and table salt. Several years ago I discovered this activity and immediately went out and bought way too much salt! You only need to cover the bottom of the tray and really didn’t take that much salt. I still have 2 unopened salt containers –oops.
We used a round cake pan for our “tray.” I dumped some salt until the bottom of the pan was completely covered. I asked my son if he could make the letter A and he immediately made an A. Then he asked if he could make other letters! Absolutely!!! I picked up the pan and gently swished it from side to side so that the A disappeared and salt covered the whole bottom again. My son started making lots of letters and liked being the one to swish to pan after each letter. We practiced uppercase and lowercase letters.
Now that I knew that making letters in the salt tray was something he enjoyed, I asked him to make numbers. He did a great job with his numbers! This activity was a lot of fun and added variety to learning letters and numbers.
In between salt tray writing practice, I kept the tray in a cupboard. When it started to look yucky, I dumped the salt, washed the pan, and then added new salt. As long as your kiddo washes their hands before this activity, your salt should be usable for a while.
Add some spooky fun to your learning activities with these preschool Halloween worksheets! Download these free worksheets and practice writing letters, phonetic sounds, counting, and writing numbers 1-25 in numerical order. Read some Halloween bookstoo and make it a spooky day!
ABCs
It’s almost Halloween and the alphabet has never been this spooky!
Science Experiment: make this fall-themed Pumpkin Fizz and watch as the fizz forms when the vinegar mixes with the baking soda!
I Spy Counting Worksheets: my son loves the “I Spy” challenges, so I have made a lot of them. Try the Bat I Spy,Fall I Spy, and Owl I Spy worksheets too.
Enjoy 10 preschool pirate books and a fun, pirate activity that will surely get your preschooler saying “Arrr!”
Preschool Pirate Books
September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here are some fun pirate stories to enjoy and a pirate-themed Find the Differences worksheet to try 🙂
10 Preschool Pirate Books
1. Pirate Boy by Eve Bunting. — In this sweet, reassuring story, a mother’s love will follow her son anywhere, even onboard a pirate ship. No distance, no sea monsters, and no unruly pirates will be able to stop Mom.
2. Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime by Myra Wolfe. — I love this book! It is the cutest story about a young pirate named Charlotte Jane who refuses to go to bed. She has important pirate things to do and sleep just gets in the way. Charlotte Jane loses her “oomph” and her parents form a search party to find the missing oomph. The missing oomph is nowhere to be found. How is she going to have sword fights and engage in other pirate activities without any oomph? Charlotte Jane falls asleep and awakes full of oomph and ready to be a pirate!
3. How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. — This is a funny story filled with fantastic illustrations by David Shannon. In this book, Jeremy Jacob joins a pirate crew and learns all about being a pirate. He’s enjoying not eating vegetables and having gross table manners. It’s all fun until he learns that pirates don’t do any of the loving things that his mom does, such as read bedtime stories and tuck him in at night.
4. Pirates Don’t Change Diapers by Melinda Long. — In this follow-up to How I Became a Pirate, the pirates return to Jeremy Jacob’s house to look for treasure, but an upset baby stalls their plans. Nobody is able to get anything done until Bonny Anne is happy. In this silly turn of events, the pirates become babysitters and learn that an upset kiddo is even more terrifying then their pirate adventures!
5. Pirates Love Underpantsby Claire Freedman. — Preschoolers love books about underwear! Get ready to laugh your way through this silly book as the pirates go in search of the fabled golden underpants.
6. Shiver Me Hook; a pirate ABC by June Sobel. — The pirate crew is embarking on an alphabet adventure. They search high and low for all of the letters from A to Z, with each letter corresponding to something piratey! This is perfect for preschoolers who are working on letter recognition and phonetic sounds!
7. Are Pirates Polite?by Corinne Demas. — In this fun rhyming story, the pirates show that they can, in fact, be polite and say “please” and “thank you.” If pirates can be polite, then preschoolers can too! This book has just the right amount of grossness to keep preschoolers giggling.
8. Pete the Cat and the Treasure Map by James Dean. — Sail along with Pete the Cat and friends aboard a pirate ship. They find a treasure map and set out on a hunt for the treasure. Uh-oh, they run into a sea monster! Is the sea monster going to cause trouble or become a new friend? Preschoolers love Pete the Cat and they will enjoy Pete’s pirate adventure!
9.Arrr, Mustache Babyby Bridget Heos — This is the cutest story about two toddlers, one who is born with a mustache and one who is born with a beard. One day at the community pool, they encounter two pirate tots and the mustache baby and the bear baby turn into pirates, determined to keep all of the loot for themselves. A whimsical battle between the kids ensues. Behaving like pirates does not make their parents happy. As their treasure filled ship sinks, the tots find themselves in a timeout. They learn that sharing is lot more fun than hoarding the treasure and behaving badly.
10. How to be a Pirate by Isaac Fitzgerald. — A young girl named Cece wants to be a pirate, but the boys tell her she can’t be one (mean!). She doesn’t let them stop her and she seeks out her grandfather for advice on being a pirate. Grandpa has tattoos (just like a pirate) and a ship in a bottle, so Cece is convinced he knows all about pirates. He guides her through all of the things pirates need to be, ending with a beautiful conclusion about believing in oneself.
Find the Differences — Pirate Edition
Can you spot differences between these two pirate-themed scenes? Look closely and see if you can find all five.
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Preschoolers like to touch and feel things and enjoy learning through physical interaction. I wanted something tangible for teaching the alphabet so that my son could have hands-on learning and I was excited to find these alphabet sand molds. I ordered them right away and they were the perfect size for his little hands.
When we worked on our weekly letters, he could feel the letter, trace its shape with his finger, and really get a visual for what each letter looks like. These sand molds provided so many learning opportunities! My son used them in his sandbox, I helped him trace them on paper and let him color them in, and I used them for a letter matching game 🙂
Letter Matching Game:
I made a game to help him connect uppercase and lowercase versions of each letter. I wrote the lowercase letters with chalk on our patio and had him place the uppercase sand molds on top of the lowercase chalk letters. We went in ABC order until he really got a handle on his letters and then I had him randomly pull out a letter from a paper bag and find its match on the patio.
Alphabet Matching Game
We have gotten a lot of use out these alphabet sand molds. They are great for tactile learning and fun, alphabet play. I hope they will help your preschooler with learning the alphabet! For more ideas and a copy the weekly alphabet learning schedule I used with son, check out my Alphabet page. Please note that I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to help with the costs of my website, so if you buy something through one of my links, I earn a small percentage of the sale. Thank you for your support 🙂
For years, I read stories at my library’s preschool story time. Preschool story time followed the school district’s calendar so we usually started our story time year in sync with the school year. A creature of habit, I always liked to kick off story time with books about the alphabet, colors, and counting. There are lots of great books about the alphabet available and I have a hard time picking just 3 or 4 to read at story time. One book that I always skipped was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, and illustrated by Lois Elhert (one of my favorite illustrators!). This is a great book and I love the pictures. However, I never wanted to read because it is supposed to be sung and I have a TERRIBLE singing voice and seriously have a hard time keeping rhythm. Skipping this book was shameful because I knew how awesome it is. Still, I justified it because there other great alphabet stories.
Skip forward a few years and my son’s teacher read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to his preschool class. He loved it! He came home all excited about this book and asked if I would read it to him. So I got a copy from the library. Before reading it at bedtime, I watched the Scholastic animated movie so that I could get the rhythm of the song (okay, I watched it a few times). Bedtime rolled around and I felt ready to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and my son was so happy to be able share a special part of his school day with me. He didn’t care about my bad singing voice and he was thrilled to help me sing the chorus. This book has become a bedtime favorite and we ended up getting our own copy since we did have to return the library’s. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom again last night, and even though I have been humming it in my head all day, I am so glad that it is part of bedtime favorites rotation of books now 🙂 Get a copy from your public library, or buy it on Amazon here.
I created an Alphabet Worksheet for my son to do. The goal is to draw a line, matching the uppercase and lowercase letters.
I mentioned that there are other great alphabet books I shared at preschool storytime, so if you are curious, some of my favorites are:
–A Busy Creature’s Day Eating by Mo Willems — I love everything by Mo Willems! With his signature humor and all around silliness, Mo takes the reader on an alphabet adventure, documenting the perils of overeating and eating yucky things. Be forewarned, my son loves “V is for vomit” and your child will probably latch onto that part too! Check this out from your local library, or buy it on Amazon here.
–Poor Puppy and Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel — this book is great because it combines learning the alphabet with counting! This books is fairly long, so it might be better for 4-year olds or 3-year olds who can sit still for longer stories. Check this out from your local library, or buy it on Amazon here.
–LMNO Peas by Keith Baker — this story takes the reader alphabetically through all of the different jobs and things that peas can do, starting with acrobatic peas. The pictures are adorable! There are pea sequels, so you can continue the fun 🙂 Check this out from your local library, or buy it on Amazon here.
–Click Clack, Quackity-Quack by Doreen Cronin — another great book from Cronin’s Click Clack series. This is a quick read, so perfect toddlers and preschoolers who can’t sit still very long. The book does such a fantastic job of creating a story out the alphabet and incorporating the phonetic sounds. To top it off, the illustrations are packed with humor!
Check this out from your local library, or buy it on Amazon here.
To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s affiliate program, which pays advertising fees to sites that advertise and link to Amazon’s products. So if you buy the book through my site, I get a small percent from the sale.
