Lower Case Alphabet Art ~ D'Nealian letters

My youngest and I just finished up his lower case letters and sounds! Well I shouldn’t say finished because we continue to work on them but the letters are up! He has the bottom bed of a bunk so they are posted on the underside of the top bunk. We review them every night and he has all of the sounds down pat and now is blending words when I touch the letters. I think I will take them down soon so we can move them around to make words. It has been so fun!

When my older two boys made an “alphabet wall” we only did the uppercase letters. They had no problem learning the lowercase letters as well but I really wanted to do the lowercase this time with my youngest to change it up. I searched all over for good bubble lowercase font that was in d’nealian print (the ones with the tails that many schools teach to transition in to cursive). I couldn’t find them anywhere but I did find a decent bubble letter font that I could convert with a little white out and sharpie! I probably could have figured out how to do it on the computer but I much prefer sitting down at the table with some white out and a sharpie than sitting at a computer! So if you are not familiar with d’nealian that is why many of the letters have little tails. I figure that if I am going to do lowercase I might as well teach it the same way their kindergarten teacher will.

I wanted to make this easy to reproduce so all you have to do is gather the supplies (most of them you will have at home) and print off the alphabet pages. Card stock is probably best but we just used white copy paper and that worked just fine but not as durable. Each letter has a type of painting, printing or rubbing to do that starts with the same sound as the letter (ex. a is apple prints, b is bubble wrap prints, etc). While you are doing the “alphabet art” discuss the sound that the letter makes. Cut it out when it is dry and post it somewhere to practice. You can do one a week or whatever works for you. You can also check out what else we have done with the letters by going here!

  

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this….

Lower Case Alphabet Art (D’Nealian Letters)
for pre-readers…

Kindergarten Readiness Skills (and IDEAS to do at home to prepare!)

Kindergarten Readiness Skills for Your Child

Kindergarten is a big step for kiddos (and their parents)! It has also changed a ton since we went to kindergarten! I have poured over tons of resources and consulted with a few kindergarten teachers to make a list of skills that are beneficial for your kiddo to know before entering kindergarten. After the skills listed for each category, I have given a list of ideas and activities that you can do at home to practice these skills. 

There are two things I want you to remember when reading through this list:
The first is that kids develop develop at different rates so don't stress if they aren’t quite there yet on some of the skills– their kindergarten teacher will continue to work on these skills!

The second is that play is so important! They have many years ahead of them to be in school so when you work on the skills make it playful and fun and don't over do it!   

For a printable list go here!

Ok, now for the kindergarten readiness list of skills...

School Valentine Treasure Hunt for Kindergarten, First or Second grade classes

Here is a fun treasure hunt you can do with your class! The clues go around the school! Just cut out the hearts from the free printable and post them in the places given below. I am hiding boxes of conversation hearts as the treasure but you can do anything (Valentine’s cards, pencils, hearts, etc)! I have included a blank heart at the end of the printable if you want to write them a note about their treasure.

Save the first heart and clue #1 to give to the students. Hide Clue #2 – music room, Clue #3 – computer lab, Clue #4 – library, Clue #5 – gym, Clue #6 – office, Clue #7 – lunch room, and the
TREASURE – a trail of hearts by the classroom door to the treasure

Super Bowl XLIII Denver Broncos VS. Seattle Seahawks - complete your outfit with Team Earrings

Let's see which team buys the most earrings! Go to Rocky Mountain Mommas to buy your Super Bowl earrings!

Heart Animal Valentine Holders (Valentine's Day Party)

For Hornet’s Kindergarten class I had these paper plate valentine holders in my brain. It started because while organizing his teacher’s classroom closet (she told me I could, I promise I didn’t just dive right in) I found large stacks of paper plates (I hope they take that off the kindergarten list). I took some home to see what I could come up with. I originally thought I would do 2 of the heart paper plates back to back and thought they would stand up. They kept rolling over though and every idea I could think of to make them stand up sounded awful when I thought of duplicating it 25 times. So the paper plate hearts stapled to a brown paper bag is what I came up with. They could also be stapled to a shoe box (which is what many classes bring in to decorate for their valentine holder).

The kids in the class made cute heart animals for the front of the paper plate heart! I really loved how these turned out! The book My Heart is 

Like a Zoo by Michael Hall is perfect for this!

We had the whole morning (3 hours) for the party so we did this first. This could also be done a day or two in advance. The kids used the paper plate heart to put their crafts in and the paper bag for their valentines! It worked great! These Heart Animal Valentine Holders would work well with any elementary ages.