Alphabet Book A-E

Finally the alphabet book is here! Or at least the beginning of it. The toddlers have been working on this all year, but that’s because it is not the main focus of our days. This could easily be done in a week.

So first, the reasoning: no, I’m not drilling little one- and two-year-olds on their letters. No, we’re not doing a “letter of the week” or “letter days.” Although that might work in preschool, toddlers are just not going to get that. Instead, we are introducing letters to the little ones and letting them play with them so that letters become something they associate with fun. 
 
At the beginning of the year, I searched Pinterest arduously and pulled ideas from tons of great alphabet books (most of which are on my Alphabet Fun board). As with our Bible verse handprint calendar, I  planned out what activities to do with each letter, and what letters would go along with what thematic lessons, and then we spread them out to do one page every week or two.

Rainy Day Crafts

The pages are all done on colored cardstock (which I got on sale and/or parents donated) and are mostly one-dimensional so they will be able to lay flat in a book. At the end of the school year, they will get to take home their own book, which they can use to remember some of the fun activities we did in our class this year, and also as a more formal introduction to the alphabet when they get a little older. But right now our main priority is just playing with letters!

DIY Magnet Boards

Aa is for Apples

This was just an extension of our “apple day” during our study of the 5 senses in September, during which we observed, touched, smelled, tasted, and painted with apples. (We also listened to the apples being cut, so yeah, we used all our senses with apples.) I brought in 3 different colored apples, and we dipped them in 3 corresponding colors of paints. We did these pages first and very carefully together, and then they got to make more apple prints on their own on another piece of paper.

Bb is for Blue Blocks

We just stamped some blue foam blocks in blue paint, and that was it! This was during our “colors and shapes” unit in February, so I tried to provide several different shapes of blocks, which we talked about as they were painting. But we’ve actually been working on our colors and shapes all year, so this was just a fun reinforcement activity, because who doesn’t like dipping their blocks in paint?!

Cc is for Corn on the Cob

I brought in some Indian corn for the kiddos in November, around Thanksgiving time, so of course, not only did we get to touch them and observe all the different colors, but we also painted with them! The method that worked best for us was filling a paper plate with 3 stripes of paint (I did yellow, purple, and red), then rolling the corn cob around in that before rolling it out on our papers. Interesting textures for sure!

Dd is for Dot Designs

Two words: bingo daubers! This is a fun one for anytime in the year. We could have done it in September when we talked about circles, or February when we studied shapes, or April when we learned about flowers, or any number of times. We ended up doing it in October. No special reason why, but they love stamping with these bingo daubers! As they stamped we talked about circles and what colors they were using, and of course, I did say “Dd is for Dots!” 

Ee is for Envelope

This was really simple – I just gave them some blank envelopes to color (scribble on)! They also got to experiment with opening up the envelopes and peeking inside. We ended up doing this in October as well, when we talked about family and “community helpers.” (Think “mail carrier”? That would probably be more meaningful for preschoolers though.)

Stay tuned for the next part of our alphabet book!

F-J
K-O