Today we started studying the letter A. We made the short “a” sound, learned the sign language letter “A”, and pretended to be airplanes soaring and making the sound for short “a”. Then we made alligators out of the letter “A”.
I found the idea at No Time for Flashcards, and had everything ready before we began. The teeth were cut, they eyes were counted out, and I had photocopied enough “A” papers for all the students. Doing as much prep work before-hand really is a must with preschoolers.
The children were allowed to color their letter “A” any colors they wished. However, we did talk about alligators being green. I think my son may have been the only child to use all green while coloring.
During their free-play time I cut out the letters and got everything laid out for the next steps. When they came back to the activity it was time to glue the letter to a piece of construction paper (Red is our color of the week.), and glue on the eyes and teeth.
The children really seemed to enjoy this activity, and I think the alligators turned out really cute. Even my 1 year old had fun coloring his letter “A”.
Before we started this activity I read the book Zack’s Alligator. It was a funny story about a boy and the adventures he has with the alligator his uncle sends him in the mail. The children seemed to enjoy listening to this story and liked looking at the pictures as I read.
