Preschool: Letter E Unit

Hi everyone, it's been awhile!  I truly hope to start updating my blog and YouTube channel more frequently.  We have been in the swing of things for a few weeks now and while pregnancy is definitely taking a toll on me, there is a light at the end of the tunnel! I feel pretty good this week and decided I should do an easy unit to get going on the blog.  You can also watch the video here:

I always try to include a few letter activities, this week we did a capital E is for Elephant craft and lower case e is for egg craft:

I saw the idea on Pinterest and just created the cutouts myself.  Below shows them assembled:

You can also see in the above picture that we have also done our do-a-dot E is for Elephant page from www.themeasuredmom.com and our E collage page from the preschool curriculum we are following: www.thepeacefulpreschool.com.  We decided to use some of our Easter stamps that we got from the Dollar Tree back in the spring, and used the egg stamps on our E collage page.

Also from the Peaceful Preschool we have our glitter glue flash cards (when I took this picture we hadn't finished them yet.)  E is too young to be able to do this herself, so we do hand over hand and I feel comfortable that she is getting used to holding a pen correctly, and also learning to trace/follow the lines.

Part of our weekly routine is to go over our 3-part cards.  These are from www.simplylearningkids.com.  I have started to actually cut off the word parts so E can start correctly matching them (I say matching, as she is too young to be able to actually read them.)

Also, as part of our weekly routine, we do a letter review for the letters we have already covered.  As you can see in the picture above, this includes matching uppercase sandpaper letters to the lowercase and correctly matching our Melissa and Doug letter puzzles.  For the puzzles, I ask her to match the letter to the first letter under the picture object. 

                                          

I plan on doing a separate post sometime about our morning basket/morning routine but for now I figured I would show you some of the different elements I added this week.  These are to go along with E is for ear (and therefore hearing and sound).  I added our Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? book because it's the one that has the sound buttons on the side.  Then I added in the animals for the book, E knows the animals and sounds but this added a bit more dimension to an already beloved book.

Our two other morning basket interactive stories included Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? because it's another fun sound book.  I did much the same as above, I included animals/objects to match the sounds in the book.  This is also a great way for kids to get their sillies/crazies out because E had a lot of fun running around making the noises!  

Also, we started working on rhyming words.  This is something I haven't tried before with E so she's definitely new to the concept.  But, we read Hop on Pop, where I focused on the words that rhymes.  In the container I have board game pieces from our Goodnight Moon board game, I added the matching pairs and we have gone through them together, matching up the words that rhyme (ie. kitten & mitten, clock & sock, etc)

Of course, I knew I had to do something with E's name because it starts with the letter E!  So awhile ago I found an idea on Pinterest for learning your name, so I went ahead and recreated it myself.  It's hard to see in the photo, but the top part says "I can spell it" with red dots under each letter.  We say each letter in her name as we touch each red dot.  Next is "I can trace it with my finger" I used glitter glue to line the letters so they are slightly textured.  Next is "I can spell it"  these are little tiles with the letters in her name that she has to place correctly in the squares.  It is shaded grey underneath the tiles so she knows where each letter goes.  Finally, is the "I can write it" portion which we are not doing yet, but when she is ready she can practice writing her name with dry erase marker on the lined paper.

This is a math activity I have set up so that E can better learn to recognize her numbers.  The point is to match up all the numbers as it is in the picture above.  The top numbers are from the Target dollar spot, the flash cards are part of the Peaceful Preschool curriculum, and the bottom are felt eggs that I created for last Easter with numbers 1-10 on them.

It's hard to see but there are two different matching 'games' here.  Again, these are left over from last Easter, and E whizzes through these as they are too easy for her now.  But the top eggs are felt stickers from the Dollar Tree, and the bottom larger eggs I cut from scrapbook paper in the shape of eggs, the object of the game was to find the matches.

This was a math and science activity to go along with E is for Eggs this week.  Half of the plastic eggs have magnets in them, and half do not, I gave E a magnetic wand to find the magnetic ones.  She loves playing with magnets so of course this captured her attention for awhile.

I wrote numbers 1-12 in the egg carton so the little puffy eggs and tweezers are for counting and correctly placing that many eggs in the corresponding slot of the egg container.  It's good work for math and fine motor skills.

Not pictured (but is included in the video):

A gross motor game that E has been loving.  We balance a plastic egg on a wooden spoon and try to walk/run as quickly down our hallway without dropping it as we can.  She laughs so much when it falls, that it has definitely become a favorite game around here.

An E is for elephant do-a-dot picture from www.themeasuredmom.com (E loves do-a-dot pictures and it's helping her with her hand-eye coordination.

Be sure to check out the video above with all the exciting footage! And follow me on Instagram for any other projects that we do spur of the moment this week: https://www.instagram.com/stayhomewithus/