Preschool by the Letters

With a big family I always start our school day by giving attention to the little ones.  We have 3 big containers filled with books, games, math assignments , art projects and many fun things for children in preschool through third grade that are organized alphabetically in file folders.
Each week we pull out a new letter folder, read the books  and do the crafts. They are a supplement to my home school but the small children really like the extra attention. 

 I hope to share some of the projects weekly in photographs.  

After we read  There is an Alligator under my bed by Mercer Mayer my little fellow gets to make an Alligator.    If they want to make their alligator differnetly I let them.  I do not want to stifle genus by putting how to do everything in a box.  The first week we start small and work up to big things.  Little ones tend to memorize "a"  quite easily. 

With the letter A there is a great opportunity to have fun with science because of animals. 
Before we started this semester we took a field trip to the zoo and to see my sister's farm animals including sheep, chickens and a llama!

Of course with the letter A there are Animals. 

The little ones will listen to any book on animals and I have them tell me about what they learned.  In the photo are cut outs of zoo Animals.  Some one else made them and we just play with them saying the name of the animal and and the sounds they make. 

Great A books in the file:
Ashanti to Zulu African traditions By Margret Musgrove Anno's Alphabet
There is an Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer
The Art Lesson
Imogene's Antlers By David Small





*The Alphabet is a great place to start when educating preschoolers and early elementary children.  We try not to say the letter names.  We start with the soft sounds and work up to the long sound after the child has the soft sound memorized. 

**Also we use Rod and staff books  for pre k and kindergarten.
         http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/list/Rod_and_Staff_Preschool/ 

***Most of these neat things were created and designed by Mary Jane Brown