A is for Alphabet! Letter A: Preschool Activities and Lesson Plan

This week we began home preschool again. I LOVE doing preschool at home with my kids. It is a time for fun, learning, and laughing together. I am creating a Letter of the Week curriculum, and we’d love to have you follow along! This week we started right at the beginning with this free preschool lesson plan A is for Alphabet! Kids will love these fun preschool ideas for writing, reading, singing, crafting, and playing with the Letter A.

Home preschool is an ideal way to teach my kids (and whatever buddies are with us) the things that really matter, laugh together, and shower them with love at this young and important age. My hope is that these lesson plans and activities help you in your efforts to do the same.

We’ve done preschool both on our own and in preschool groups with success. If you haven’t seen my quick tips for getting started with successful home preschool, check them out.

This year is Little #3’s turn for preschool, and I am excited to share my lesson plans with you! This is the first in our Alphabet Lesson Plan Series. In these lessons, we use the alphabet as a starting point to learn about science, math, music, art, healthy habits, and more!

Feel free to use and share these plans to talk, sing, read, write, and play your way through the alphabet. (These are the foundational activities that help your child be ready to read!) You can use our full lesson plans, or, of course, pick individual activities to do with the Littles in your life.  I am also a budget-friendly Mama, so no worries there: our activities are always easy on the pocketbook.

Without further ado, let’s start at the very beginning…

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Visit the Preschool Lesson Plan Index to see what free plans are published or in the works!

Update: You can now get ALL of the Alphabet Lesson Plans, Checklists, and Printables, (plus Bonus Ideas and 75+ exclusive preschool printables!) all in one budget-friendly digital product…A to Z and Beyond! Preschool Curriculum.

Learn More about A to Z and Beyond!

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Introduction to Letter A Lesson Plan

I always like to start preschool with the same routine.  Ours is to gather on the floor for circle time and start with a welcome song.  There are many welcome songs out there, but when my daughter came home from school singing  Hello to All the Children of the World, I knew it was our welcome song for this year!

Little #3 had a great time trying hello in the different languages.  He says he’s really good at “Konichiwa!”  While this song takes some practice to get all the words, don’t worry about getting it perfect the first day.  We listened to the song once, practiced the hello words, and then listened again and tried to sing along when we could.

READ: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault is the classic book I chose to introduce the alphabet for this lesson.  A few of the following activities are centered on it as well.  The bold pictures and fun, simple prose make this book a favorite of adults and kids.

Click image for purchasing information.

This book can also be found at many local libraries.

TALK: Letter A is for Alphabet!

After reading the book, we looked at all the letters on the last page. We talked about how there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Little #3 pointed out some that he already knows. We talked about how they each have a big letter (capital or uppercase) and small letter (lowercase), which are made of straight and/or curvy shapes. We talked about how each letter makes a certain sound or two.

I introduced that we would have a letter of the day for each preschool day. Today was all about the first letter in the alphabet: letter A!

WRITE: Writing with Manipulatives

I gave Little #3 several straight and curvy items and challenged him to make a big “A” and a little “a”.  Examples of straight items include toothpicks, markers, or crayons.  Curvy items include rubber bands, pipe cleaners, or tie-ties.  He also noticed how close the big A is to a triangle and made lots of triangles.

SING: Alphabet Song

I introduced the two main sounds that Letter A makes, the short sound as in apple and the long sound as in ape. We thought of lots of words that begin with the A sound. One of those words was Alphabet! We sang the alphabet song with sign language.

PLAY: Rhythm Sticks

Rhythm sticks are a really fun way to help kids begin to feel beats and follow patterns. Wooden dowels, fat markers, or paper towel tubes are examples of things that can be used as rhythm sticks. Each person needs two sticks. Check out this video for a fun example of using rhythm sticks.

To begin with, rhythm patterns can start really simple and get more and more complex as kids grow into it.

Two beginner rhythm stick beats are called tap and click. Tap is hitting the end of the sticks on the ground, and click is knocking the two sticks together. We used those two beats and practiced two simple patterns, each with four counts. The first rhythm pattern was tap, tap, click, click. The second rhythm pattern was tap, click, tap, click.

After practicing the beats for a bit, we turned on a video of a musical version of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and tried to keep the beat. After practicing the two patterns, we combined them. We started with the the first pattern, switched to the second pattern, rubbed the two sticks together for skit skat skoodle oot, and then repeated.

Kids can also make up their own rhythm patterns. This was a really fun and interactive music activity!

PLAY: Alphabet Fishing

Guess what? Those letters climbed the coconut tree again and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! They all fell into the ocean!! Do you think you can help fish them out?

We used the magnetic letters from our fridge, our couch as a dock, and a sand bucket to put the caught letters into. Some yarn tied around a pencil with a paper clip attached to the other end of the yarn was the fishing pole.

We have two sets of magnetic letters. One is the fabulous and famous Leap Frog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set and the other is from the dollar store.

The Leap Frog Magnetic Letters are a really fun and educational toy to have around. Ours have lasted for years, and the kids enjoy playing with the letters while I work in the kitchen. This could be a fun birthday present or beginning of preschool surprise!

Click image for purchasing information.

Both of our magnetic sets work for this activity. However, the dollar store letters are not as strong. They did better with a magnet attached to the paper clip. (We called the magnet bait.  🙂 )

I didn’t know how long this activity would last, but it was definitely longer than I thought. Little #3 loved it! At first he wanted me to catch letters with him, but then he wanted to catch all of them, so I laid on the dock with him and did the excited, “Which one did you catch this time?” He even had to hold his breath a few times and swim down there to check things out.  🙂

WRITE: Coconut Tree Printable

Next, we did a simple color, cut, and paste activity. Little #3 is working on cutting round edges, so I made this simple coconut tree with coconuts for him to cut and paste.

Additionally, I threw in some math with this activity. We talked about how many coconuts there were (six), which was the biggest and smallest, and different ways to add up to six.  For example, if you have already colored two coconuts, how many do you have left?

After seeing that this was a good learning activity in several ways, I made a nicer version for you guys. Here is a Prettier Free Printable of the Coconut Tree Activity. Remember, all the free printables are also included in the Free Lesson Plan Checklist.

I like to make a cumulative book of the alphabet throughout preschool time. This Coconut Printable activity will go nicely in the book for Letter A, but if our craft on other days is not a page that does so, we’ll do a different letter activity during the week that will go into the book.

PLAY: I Spy the Alphabet

After Little #3 was done with his Coconut Tree Printable, we brought our bucket of caught letters over to our circle time area.

Using our DIY magnetic whiteboard (white paper in a page protector on a baking sheet), we played I Spy the Alphabet. I said, “I spy with my little eye the Letter A,” as I wrote it on the whiteboard. Then he found the letter.

I wasn’t planning on doing the whole alphabet, but he wanted to find all the letters and in order, and I couldn’t say no!  😉 He liked covering my writing with the matching letter.

TALK: Letters Make Words

We kept a few letters on the pan and talked about how the letter sounds come together to make words. I would write the word on the whiteboard, and then he found the letters to make the word.

We practiced spelling a few simple words with “a” in the middle and trading the beginning and ending sounds. For example, BAT can become BAD by changing the ending sound. We spelled a few rhyming words.

We talked about how amazing it will be to know all the letters and be able to write and read anything we want!

READ: ABC Book

There are so many fun ABC books out there! You might want to find one about a topic that your Little already loves, or pick one that introduces a whole new set of ideas.

One of our favorite ABC books is Miss Spider’s ABC by David Kirk. In this story, the insects are all getting ready for a surprise party for Miss Spider! The illustrations are vibrant, and my kids love the surprise ending.

Click image for purchasing information.

Write: Trace the Alphabet

Throughout preschool, we’ll learn what all the letters of the alphabet look and sound like. We will also practice writing them. Today, we will trace them just for fun!

There is an Alphabet Tracing Printable included in the Free Lesson Plan Checklist.

This is great to do at the beginning of preschool and then again after you’ve gone through the whole alphabet. At this point in the beginning, many preschoolers (especially younger ones) won’t even have the patience to trace the whole alphabet. That’s no problem! Just let this go however it goes. If you want to, you can also write on the back which letters your preschooler knows right now.

Save this with your preschool materials, and it will be fun to compare how much the writing has changed over the year.

EAT: Foods that Start with Letter A

No preschool is complete without a themed snack!

I usually have the snack ready and then see how our tummies are feeling as we go. If we get hungry, we’ll eat a snack in the middle. This time, neither of us even thought about food until after we were finished. I guess we were too excited for the big starting day!

Good “A” snacks include alphabet crackers, Cheez-It scrabble letters, animal crackers, apple slices, avocados, asparagus, almonds, apricots, or applesauce pouches. Alphabet soup would make a great, fun lunch or hearty snack.

Sing: Goodbye Song

To conclude, quickly review what letter A looks and sounds like.

Finally, just like we start with a song, I like to end with a song too. We use the London Bridge is falling down tune and sing “Everybody say goodbye, say goodbye, say goodbye. Everybody say goodbye. We’ll see you next week!”

Another goodbye song we like is to the tune of the very beginning of Goodnight Ladies from Music Man. We sing the words, “Goodbye friends. Goodbye friends. Goodbye friends. We’ll see you next week!”

I like both of these songs because they’re easy, short, and sweet!

Well, Little #3 and I had a great time with “A is for Alphabet!”  I hope some of these ideas are helpful for you. Coming up, I’ll share what I have found to build the foundation of reading readiness and a lesson plan for “B is for Bear.” One of those Bears will probably be eating Berries with a little Boy…One of my favorite Books! (Oh how I love the letter B!:) Let me know how your home preschool adventures are going!

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Leave a comment and share what activities your Littles are enjoying, what types of posts you’d like to see, or any other questions or thoughts you have. I love hearing from you. Share pictures on social media using #lovinlifewithlittles. Thanks for visiting, and Happy Preschooling!

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