A week full of Letter A printables to engage, educate and encourage independence, while you work with your older children.
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With school starting just around the corner, many parents wondering how they are going to homeschool their children, entertain their preschooler and work!
I felt like I needed something to engage my preschooler while I work with my first grader (and try to balance our two newborns that are schedule to arrive any day now!) For my preschooler, I decided to go with a letter of the week theme because there are so many great resources out there.
Our homeschool routine has never been very predictable, and definitely doesn’t look like your typical classroom. This may sounds like common sense to many of you, but it took me awhile to figure out that we are most successful when the kids are given similar type activities, and I have the ability to work with both of them. For example, my older daughter will often have work in her Math or English book, at this time I will also give my preschooler a worksheet. That way they are moving at a similar speed, and I can easily work with both of them as needed. If my daughter has computer work, I will also give my son something on the computer or ipad (such as Epic!).
Letter A Worksheets
I was looking for worksheets that would be engaging, educational and independent. Like I said, there are so many great resources out there, but I also decided to create some of our own, you can download the Letter ‘a’ worksheet printable pack in the link below. In this weeks printable pack, you will find the following worksheets.
Introduction to the sounds of 'a'
The worksheets this week introduce the sounds of ‘a’, there are 3 sounds of ‘a’, the most common being ă, as in apple. It is fun, even at this age to introduce letters not just by their name but by the sounds that they make. A fun way to learn the sounds of ‘a’ is to listen to Logic of English: Apples and Ants.
Handwritting
There is a worksheet to practice writing the letter ‘a’. I want this to be available, in case my preschooler shows interest in handwriting, but handwriting is not something I want to push. My only handwriting goal is that he can write his name by the end of the year because I know that will be important when he starts kinder. We work on that using our morning board (more on that coming soon).
Fine Motor Skills
You will find some mazes and opportunities to draw lines or circle the one that is different. To switch things up, I sometimes give my preschooler smaller counters or do-a-dot markers instead of a crayon to complete these and make it a little more fun.
Ants on an Ant Hill
This is a simple art activity, but my kids have both really enjoyed it. Use a stamp pad and your fingers to make ants climbing up and around the ant hill.
Pattern Block Apple
Pattern blocks are so fun, if we get them out for a school activity it usually leads to a creating a few more designs. While you have the pattern blocks out, remember to talk about the different colors and shapes.
Supplies
We have a very small space for home school, so I don’t like to go overboard on supplies. We will use many of the items listed below on a daily/weekly basis.
- Crayons or Colored Pencils – We like Crayola twistable crayons or colored pencils because they seem to last longer.
- Do-a-dot Art! Markers
- Counters – Anything will work, we usually use small glass gems like these. They typically sell these at the dollar store.
- Stamp Pads
- Pattern Blocks
Other Activities to complete our letter A week
Songs:
- Logic of English: Apples and Ants.
- The Ants go Marching
Books
We usually love the library, but during this pandemic we have been relying more on Epic! Here are some letter ‘a’ books available on Epic!
- Apples by Gail Gibbons
- The Ants Go Marching One By One by Frankie O’Connor
- Johnny Appleseed by Anastasia Suen
- Discover the Alphabet by Xist Publishing
- Fables and Fairy Tales for Kidsd #2 by Joy Education – The Ant and the Grasshopper pg 33.
- Ants Dont Wear Pants by Kevin McCloskey – This is a great book to inspire a backyard nature study.
Recipes
- Apple Crisp (click here for an illustrated recipe)
- Ants on a Log (click here for an illustrated recipe)
Other topics for this week
Coming Soon!
Since this is the first week of school, in addition to the letter ‘a’, we are also going to talk about Routines. Click here to download a little book that talks about routines, and helps you come up with a homeschool routine that will work for your family.
Hope you have found some recourse here to help make your homeschool day go smoothly. Please let me know in the comments below if there is anything else you have added to your Letter A week that we should try!
