Our first week of AlphaBooks was a big hit! Little Sir now knows “K,” our letter of the week, and always asks for “my lesson.”
Please don’t get scared or turned off with the word “lesson,” though. It’s really just my one-on-one time with my boy while his big sister is doing something by herself. We usually take about 15 to 30 minutes reading and doing our activities. You can call it structured time, but for me, it’s just a time of intentionally learning together using whatever materials we already have.
So, what did we do for the week that was brought by the letter “K?”
Our “K” Books
- Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne – our main book since it’s on the BFIAR book list; illustrated by H.A. Rey, creator of the Curious George books
- Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes – a Caldecott medal winner about a kitten that mistakes the moon for a bowl of milk
- The Three Little Kittens by Paul Galdone – a classic nursery rhyme illustrated by multi-awarded illustrator Paul Galdone
- Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother Too? by Eric Carle – a book about baby animals and their mommies
Our “K” Activities
For letter recognition and tactile experience, I took out all our “K” materials: rubber mat, felt alphabet, and miniature kangaroos. To get Little Sir to the table, I would hold out the big “K” and ask him to find “my baby ‘k’.” He would happily leave whatever he was doing to help “mommy ‘K’ find her baby.
For a letter hunt game, I would ask him to find all the letter Ks each time that we read any of our books. This is easy to do on the cover and title pages because the letters are big.
For fine motor skills, I got a page from two of our unused preschool workbooks. He cut one page any way he wanted and we pasted it back jigsaw puzzle style.
Another page was for coloring, stamping with a “K” stamp, and embossing with “K.”
We also traced the big “K” from the rubber mat and cut out the pattern. Though he didn’t feel like coloring or doing anything with it anymore, this is an activity that we can easily replicate for each letter and do various crafts on.
For some gross motor exercises and pretend play that happened throughout the day, we hopped like k-k-k-kangaroos and k-k-k-kicked our legs in the air. And of course, we k-k-k-kissed!
AlphaBooks is a series here at The Learning Basket documenting ideas on how to gently introduce the alphabet to your child using books and simple activities. To read the start of the series, click here.
Make magic!
