Books and Giggles
Teaching children to blend individual sounds into CVC words is extra fun with this free printable sloth slider! Wouldn’t this be fun to use during a zoo unit?! If you’ve ever seen a sloth in person at a zoo (or have been lucky enough to see one in the wild), you know that they really…
Inside: Preschoolers can celebrate the harvest with this story-based cornmeal writing tray activity and free printable letter formation cards. Add this to your Little Red Hen unit! This week, I stumbled on a fun, multicultural companion story to read aloud after your kids hear The Little Red Hen. Then, I created a hand-on early literacy…
Inside: Help preschool and kindergarten students practice letter recognition and beginning sounds with a fun bat letter sounds activity perfect for October and Halloween. There’s just something about bats that captures kids’ curiosity. Whether you’re reading bat stories like Stellaluna, making bat crafts, or exploring nocturnal animals, they always seem to draw children in. Plus,…
Inside: a free printable birdhouse ABC activity where kids put alphabet bird cards into a birdhouse. Includes a letter spinner, uppercase letter cards, and recording sheets in both uppercase and lowercase letter versions. Spring and summertime are for the birds! Here in Texas, we love watching barn swallows build nests over the grandparents’ porch every…
Inside: Grab a free printable dinosaur hat that features facts about dinosaurs, and promote oral language as well as some dino content! Little kids are like sponges sometimes, soaking up facts about new things they’re interested in. There’s nothing cuter than a 4- or 5-year-old dinosaur expert! Plus, being an “expert” gives children oral language…
Inside: Grab this free printable dog name recognition activity to help preschoolers work on recognizing their names in print. As preschoolers, my own kids loved playing dog – like actually pretending they were puppies. It was entertaining to watch! Even when they went through a phase of being afraid of actual dogs (we didn’t have…
Inside: a free printable CVC words activity with a birthday theme featuring paper cake, “candles”, and balloons. Birthday CVC Words Activity Birthday cakes and balloons are a big deal for kids, so I thought they would make a fun theme for beginning CVC word work. Even better, I turned it into a free printable for…
Inside: Children can practice recognizing and spelling their names with this free printable birthday cupcake name activity. There’s nothing like a birthday for making a child feel special. You can add to their self-esteem by helping them learn the letters in their very own name! Who is this Name Activity For? This editable birthday activity…
Inside: a free printable basketball-themed pocket chart activity for preschoolers and kindergartners to practice matching letters with sounds. I’ve created a set of baseball name activities and put together a list of books about football, but until now I haven’t done anything with basketball. It’s almost time for March Madness, so now seems like a…
Inside: free printable seasons playdough mats for preschoolers along with conversation starters to use with students. Today I’m sharing playdough mats that you can use when you’re teaching about the seasons. This activity exercises those little fingers and reinforces the letters w, s, and f and their initial sounds. Playdough is one of my all-time…
Inside: Free printable Christmas letters sounds cards that are hands-on interactive! Use these to help preschoolers learn letters and letter sounds this holiday season. Get ready for some festive learning fun with this Christmas-themed free printable! Children can practice naming letters (and their sounds, if they’re ready) before unfolding a ‘present’ to reveal a hidden…
Inside: This Christmas name activity helps preschoolers work on name recognition in a fun, hands-on way. There are so many fun ways for kids to learn in December! Last year I made free Christmas Name Puzzles to share here on the blog. And we have loads of other Christmas activity ideas here too. This year…
Room on the Broom, The Scarecrow’s Hat, Stellalua, and Pumpkin Jack are some of my favorite sequencing books for October. These much-loved stories all have structures that work well for putting events in order and retelling. At the same time, telling the story back helps young students with comprehension and oral language. I started creating…
Add these educational hats to your apple unit, and work on science, math, and literacy concepts with your preschool and kindergarten students. It’s apple season! Here’s a fun activity you can use with your apple unit, and it includes a cute free printable that adds a literacy element as well as science and math. Choose…
These free editable playdough name mats are a fun, hands-on way for preschoolers to learn about the letters in their names. If you’re teaching kids about their names, you’ll want some fun activities in your bag of tricks. In addition to making name crafts and reading aloud books about names, your students will enjoy working…
Add this free printable line tracing activity to your community helpers unit. Students can build their fine motor and pre-writing skills while reinforcing what they’ve learned about 8 different community helper roles. Teaching a community helpers unit is a great way to show kids how different jobs make our community run smoothly and how everyone’s…
Grab a little flashlight for your preschoolers to practice spelling their names with this interactive summer name craft and activity. Summer means staying up late, and that means fireflies! At least it does in some places (unfortunately we don’t have many here, but we see them when we visit cousins back East). If your kids…
The Summer Olympics are July 26th – August 11th this year (2024) – right in time for Back to School season! With that in mind, I thought it would be fitting to make a summer games themed All About Me worksheet for you. You might also like these free First Day of School Name Crowns…
Get ready for your zoo field trip or just a zoo unit with these free printable Zoo Hats that feature letters of the alphabet! Alphabet Zoo Hats I’ll find any excuse to make a fun hat for little kids to learn from and wear proudly, and these are no exception. I hope you and your…
These zebra line tracing worksheets give your students some pre-writing fine motor practice and introduce the letter Z with its initial sound. Add this to your Zoo unit! Many preschoolers enjoy using dry-erase markers and tracing lines with crayons. Yes, you should also be doing lots of hands-on activities like working with playdough and small…
Grab your watercolors for this cute little set of winter paint-by-letter worksheets. You’ve probably heard of paint by number. For your preschoolers who love to paint with watercolors, we’ve created an early literacy offshoot of that. Winter Paint by Letter With these free worksheets, students will find the letters and paint them a specific color….
Your kids will be thrilled to decorate their own winter hats with this editable winter hat name craft! They’re a fantastic way to practice letter identification, scissor skills, and spelling their own name, and they look fabulous on a winter or holiday bulletin board! These editable hats are so much fun and very easy to…
Your students can work on tracing curvy lines with this free printable winter tracing activity. Sometimes you just want a simple, no-prep activity that keeps your kids busy on a cold winter day. Other times you have specific fine motor skill goals that you need your students to work on. These free printable winter line…
Dive into a mini hibernation unit with these fun bear hibernation hats for kids! They’re the perfect way to practice sequencing while teaching about winter animals at the same time. Kids are fascinated by the concept of hibernation. It’s hard to imagine that animals can sleep for months at a time! This makes hibernation a…