Letter A - Letter of the Week - Letter A FREE Printable Pack - Letter A Activity Ideas - Pool Noodles & Pixie Dust

Letter of the Week – Letter A

Spread the love

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

Welcome to the beginning of our Letter of the Week Series with Letter A!

This Letter A post is the first in our A-Z Letter of the Week Series. You can find links to every post in the series on my Letter of the Week Series Page.

This post contains a letter A book list, animals that start with the letter A and play and activity ideas for your letter A week. Plus details about my corresponding Letter A Notebook!

Letter A FREE Printable Pack

Free Letter A Notebook Printable Pack - Letter of the week series with book list, animals that start with A, activities, and more! - Pool Noodles & Pixie Dust

The printable letter A Notebook features both uppercase and lowercase letter A pages. The images used in the pack represent different phonetic sounds for the letter A. The pack is low ink and includes black & white versions for the color puzzles.

I call the printable pack a letter notebook and would suggest completing the activities and gluing them into a notebook. That way you’ll be able to review each of the letters easily.

It will also help keep things organized for you by having all of the activity pages stored in one location. The puzzles can be glued to cardboard, printed on cardstock, or laminated and pieces put into a Ziploc bag for repeated play throughout the year.

Letter A Notebook - Letter of the Week Crafts & Activities

The Letter A Notebook includes:

  • Mazes
  • Dot-to-dots
  • Circle the letter A’s page
  • Arrow & Acorn Craft pages with cut out templates
  • Coloring Pages
  • Do-a-Dot Pages
  • 3 types of puzzles

 

Letter A - Letter of the Week - Letter A FREE Printable Pack - Letter A Activity Ideas - Pool Noodles & Pixie Dust

 

Letter A Book List

Making a book the base of your weekly preschool planning is always a good idea. It gives you ideas for extensions and activities while adding literacy and phonics in fun meaningful ways.

Below is a list of great books you could use for a Letter A week. Write your favorite titles down and check them out the next time you head to the library.

 

Ten Apples Up On Top  by Dr. Seuss

Follow these cute little animals around as they try to balance one, two, three… all the way to ten apples up on top of their heads! This is a fun book that will make your kids laugh and easily draws in counting practice to your letter A week.

 

The Lady with the Alligator Purse by Nadine Bernard Westcott

This story is one you can sing! And, the funny story is sure to cause some giggles too.

 

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day  by Judith Viorst

Everybody has bad days… even in Australia! Follow Alexander around as he experiences a particularly terrible, horrible, no good,  very bad day. Your kids will love to see that they’re not alone in hating lima beans at dinner and you’ll love the opportunity to teach them empathy.

 

Eric Carle’s ABC Book

A is for alphabet and animal in this fun Eric Carle book. My kids loved this board book that goes through the entire alphabet one animal at a time.

 

The Ants Go Marching!

This classic children’s song featuring ants is a great way to add music, movement, and counting to your letter A week.

 

Planes Fly!

This cute rhyming book shows children about different kinds of airplanes and then takes them inside an airplane to see what a flight would be like.

 

Amelia Bedelia  by Peggy Parish

Who remembers Amelia Bedelia? She was one of my favorites growing up! She takes everything literally and provides page after page of hysterical misinterpretations, like when she finds a dog outside in the rain and assumes that it’s truly raining cats and dogs! This book series will provide you and your kiddos with lots of laughs as they begin to understand figures of speech.

 

Astronauts (First Explorers) by Christiane Engel

This is a fun interactive board book that will give your kids an introduction to non-fiction books based on astronomy.

 

Letter A Apple Smiles Snack

I’ve made this fun apple snack several times with my kiddos. It’s fun and easy to put together. And, it will get your kids giggling at their toothy creations.

If you let them help with the marshmallows it also turns into a tasty fine motor activity.

Ingredients:

Apples

Peanut butter (or any nut butter would work)

Mini Marshmallows

Lemon Juice (optional)

Assembly:

To start, slice all the apples. I would try to get 3 to 4 slices per quarter apple depending on size. You want the snack to stay together, but be as easy as possible to take a bite of. Next, spread peanut butter on one side of an apple slice. Then, add the mini marshmallows. Add peanut butter to another apple slice and place on top of the apple slice with the marshmallows. We did all the apples at once and then added the marshmallows to half the apples before topping them.

 

Letter A - Letter of the Week - Letter A FREE Printable Pack - Letter A Activity Ideas - Pool Noodles & Pixie Dust

Tip: If you want to make a batch of these all at once to have for more than one day I suggest using some lemon juice to keep the apples from turning brown. Slice the apples and place them in a freezer bag with a few drops of lemon juice. With your hands move the apples around so they all get some of the juice on them. Then, assemble your smiles as normal.

 

Letter A Animals

Kids love animals! So, learning about animals during your letter of the week activities will surely be a hit. I linked to sites where you and your child can see photos and learn fun facts about animals whose names begin with the letter A. And when it’s available, I link to live animal cams as well.

 

Alligators

Alligators at the Smithsonian National Zoo

Alpaca

Alpacas at the Smithsonian National Zoo

Ape

Sandiego Zoo’s Live Ape Cam

Ant

10 Cool Facts About Ants

Ants Make a Living Raft

Aardvark

Cincinnati Zoo’s baby aardvark

Albatross

The Endangered Albatross

Anteater

Giant Anteater fun facts from the San Diego Zoo

 

Letter A Activities & Play Ideas

Play is so important to help kids learn about the world. While it’s valuable to include purposeful educational activities in a preschooler’s day it’s probably more important to purposefully plan for play. Below are some dramatic play ideas for kids learning about the letter A.

I’ve left links to videos where you can learn more about astronauts and airplanes with your child. Also, Reading lots of books on these topics will introduce your child to new vocabulary and give them plenty of background knowledge that their imaginations will run with while they play. Find a topic they’re interested in and go with that.

 

Astronaut Play

Watch some videos about astronauts to get excited about some astronaut play.

Learn what it takes to be an Astronaut in this video: What do Astronaut’s Do?

Learn about how astronaut’s spacewalk in this video from NASA

Now send your child on a spacewalk! Set up a spacewalk tether by tying a simple piece of string or yarn to a chair. Let them hold onto the other end as they carefully walk out into space (so they don’t float away!;).

 

Bake An Apple Pie 

Provide your child with toy apples, real apples, or playdough. Also, supply a baking dish, a rolling pin, and some measuring cups and spoons.

When I did this with my daughter, we made our own play apples with crumbled scraps of red paper and green paper stems. My daughter added tape to keep the apples in a somewhat round shape. And, it looks like she added a stray tennis ball to her pie!

I also let her mix her own dough, from flour, water, and cinnamon which added a sensory element to our apple play.

As adults, we can overcomplicate play and think we need to add so many elements to make it meaningful for our kids. But, a lot of times that’s just for us. Kids imaginations are amazing. They can get so much value from the simplest play sessions.

 

Letter A - Letter of the Week - Letter A FREE Printable Pack - Letter A Activity Ideas - Pool Noodles & Pixie Dust

 

Fly an Airplane

Airplanes for Kids Video

Line chairs up in rows to make airplane seats or just call the stairs an airplane and let your child fly all over the world. Provide a small suitcase for them to pack a bag for their trip. You could even draw a simple ticket for them to use when boarding their flight.

Extend this play by hanging some maps near where your child will play and they can find new places to discover on their flights.

A simple cardboard box also makes an excellent airplane. Let your child decorate the box if they want to. Then, they can either sit inside it or open both ends of the box and hold it around themselves to fly around the house.

Another fun thing to do is make a few paper airplanes and fly them around together.

 

Grab Your FREE Letter A Pack Today!

$0.00Add to cart

 

Have fun learning about Letter A this week!

Heidi

Posted in Printables and tagged , , .

Hi, I'm Heidi a Jesus-loving homeschool Mama traveling the country with my full time RVing family. I'm passionate about simplifying your homeschool or classroom days by providing quality resources and support.

7 Comments

    • You’re welcome! With the school year starting I’ve got fall things on the brain and apple pie is good just about anytime, right?;)

  1. I can’t wait to share this with my preschooler. I’ve been a little flustered coming up with a lesson plan and you’re basically delivering one into my inbox weekly. So this relieves a lot of stress. THANK YOU!

Comments are closed.