Letter of the Week Curriculum - FREE Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten
I am so excited to finally share what I have been working on for over a year!
I have been dreaming of a Letter of the Week Curriculum that covers all of our core kindergarten standards for quite a few years.
I wanted an open-and-go program that was easy for me to prep and engaging for my kiddos.
So, here we are!
All of the materials are ready you… just in time for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year.
This is an open and go program… you won’t need to find any additional resources!
I follow the research behind SOR - the Science of Reading, so my materials include activities for the Big 5:
phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary.
Plus, I include resources to teach other skills and subjects that preschool, pre-k and kindergarten students need.
This page contains affiliate links. Read Full Disclosure
You can completely tailor this curriculum to fit your classroom needs or homeschool.
You can use all of the included activities, or simply choose the resources that work well for you.
I’ve made it so easy for you to teach 26 weeks!
You can also modify or extend the activities to go at a slower/faster pace.
Print the ENTIRE WEEK of activities for LETTER Aa right here on this blog post.
I will walk you through how to use these materials, and then I share a link at the bottom to print a week for FREE!
Or, if you’re in a hurry, you can click the button below to grab the entire curriculum while it is still 50% through my summer special.
My comprehensive, standards-based bundle comes with these 10 resources:
Watch this quick video for an overview of this program:
Read the rest of this blog post to see how I am teaching!
Display these beautiful, real-life picture posters in your classroom or homeschool room.
You can also use them to create a book to introduce each letter and animal.
Laminate the smaller cards to use as flashcards, and students can practice putting the alphabet in order!
I use my SWINGLINE PRO-CLICK binder system to create a spiral notebook for each child.
This binding system is a bit of an investment, but I use it all the time!
Tip: use little sticky tabs so students can quickly find the page you left off on.
You can also just copy the worksheets and pass them out each day.
These cover almost all of the kindergarten common core and state standards.
If you use my handwriting program, the language/differentiation is the exact same.
Note: this curriculum teaches in order Aa-Zz, whereas my handwriting program does not.
I use THESE math chips for so many lessons in kindergarten.
They are perfect for using on ten frames!
The Match and Sort version is perfect for preschool, or children who are just starting to learn the alphabet.
Providing this scaffolding of matching letters (instead of sorting on their own) builds confidence and independence for children.
The Yes/No sorting works really well for letter recognition review.
Recognizing Different Fonts can be used for children who are ready for a challenge!
Students can practice writing letters with correct directionality on these activity pages.
I suggest using the handwriting worksheet to teach correct directionality first before allowing students to write on their own.
You won’t believe how quickly children can master letter names and sounds with these songs!
Simply click play and your students will be learning, giggling and singing along with their animal friends.
These slides come as PowerPoint files and Google Slides.
Each week you can use a slide to teach the animal and letter.
I also created a 7 minute sing-along video as well to practice all 26 letter names, sounds and animal friends.
The weekly poems come in three formats:
A slide to project for the class to see
Vertical poems to create a book or binder (with the vocabulary and sight words as well)
Student poems that are black and white to place in their Letter of the Week folders/binders
Thematic teaching is such an engaging way for students to learn.
Children absolutely love learning facts about animals while practicing our Science of Reading BIG 5:
phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.
I have done all the planning and prep work for you to make it so easy to follow the research behind how children learn best.
Students love reading along with you using these nonfiction mini books.
I make six of each book to use in small groups, and two book print per page.
Students enjoy looking at and discussing the facts and real-life pictures.
Teaching students how to answer comprehension questions and where they can find the answer is incredibly helpful for their reading skills. I teach them to ask their own questions, make connections and predictions as well while we are reading.
Comprehension questions:
I teach children that the answers to questions can come from the story or from your head.
Example of a “book question”: Where do alligators live?
The answer comes directly from our little book.
Example of a “head question”: Do you like alligators?
Students answer based on their own experiences or opinion.
The alligator nonfiction mini book is part of your free download available towards the bottom of this blog post!
Science and social studies often get skipped nowadays since all the focus seems to be on reading and math.
Don’t fall into this trap!
I have before and it is a disservice to our students because children absolutely love learning about these topics.
After a couple years of teaching, I learned how to incorporate science/social with my reading and writing lessons so you’re teaching so many things through a topic they are interested in!
This strategy is key for keep children engaged with your lessons.
If they’re interested and excited, you’ll have a captive audience!
These activities are so easy to use and you won’t have to write lesson plans or find additional resources.
Everything is standards-based and ready to go for each week!
Step-by-step instructions walk you and students through how to make each animal.
You can print them or show them on a projector while you’re crafting with children!
Note: some of the animals do have multiple pieces that may overwhelming for younger children.
If your children aren’t quite ready for multi-step projects, here are a few different options you can try:
Ask a volunteer or assistant to precut some of the shapes.
Ask for parent volunteers on your animal craft day each week to walk around and assist children.
Place all the pieces students need in a gallon ziplock bag.
Have students take one piece out at a time to work with.
Skip some of the craft pieces for specific animals (such as the feet or hands).
Have children draw the eyes/facial features instead of using the pieces.
Work with students in small groups (3-6 students at a time) to make their animal crafts.
These are just a few ideas to ensure animal crafts are fun for students and no stress for you!
They turn out SO cute and make adorable bulletin board displays!
The first couple of animals may be a lot of work for you to explain, etc. but children catch on quickly and these projects are incredibly helpful for students to learn how to follow directions, cut, glue, wait their turn, etc.
If you have taught preschool or kindergarten for awhile, you know that children are coming to school with fewer fine motor skills than even just a few years ago.
These adorable booklets are so helpful and target so many critical skills students need.
They are quick and easy to prep!
I copy, cut and staple them in just a few minutes. I prep quite a few weeks at a time so they are ready to go.
Children are often lacking social and emotional skills when they enter preschool and kindergarten, but these slides and worksheets make SEL easy to incorporate into your lessons every week!
Each activity page follows the same format shown here:
Show the slide, read the definition/explain the SEL vocabulary word
Next, ask children to make connections with the word (coloring the pictures)
Then, they write/draw about a time they may have felt this way
At the bottom of the page, go through ideas and strategies to help children learn how to cope, calm down, move forward, etc.
Tip: for children who need assistance with writing, I will sit with them and read the sentence starter.
They orally complete the sentence, and then I write what they say on a sticky note.
They can then copy the words from my sticky note to complete the sentence: “One time I felt angry when….”
Another idea is to write in highlighter what they say, and then they simply trace the letters.
This is an excellent way to model the writing process and how to write a complete sentence!
Whew… that was a lot to cover in a blog post!
I have created hundreds of preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade resources over the years, but I have never created such a large, comprehensive curriculum before.
It has taken me almost an entire year to complete, but I knew exactly what I wanted to make my teaching life easier:
an easy to implement, open-and-go curriculum to teach the key standards that children absolutely love!
Teaching is simply so much more fun day in and day out when children are engaged!
Save money with my Letter of the Week Curriculum Bundle!
This comprehensive, standard-based curriculum is perfect for preschool, pre-k and kindergarten.
You can use these materials in the classroom or if you are homeschooling your children.
All of the activities shown here on this blog post are included in my Letter of the Week Curriculum Bundle.
You won’t have to search or plan anything else… it is all here!
When you purchase this bundle, you’ll also receive FREE BONUS activities that are not available to purchase separately.
The colorful number mats coordinate with the math worksheets so students can use a dry erase marker or play dough along with yellow/red math chips.
Adding and subtracting through 10 are key kindergarten math standards, so these worksheets give children multiple ways to learn and practice these skills with their ABC animal friends!
Tip: give children these smaller play dough containers because it is just enough dough to make the numbers.
If you’re in the classroom, each children can have their own in their supply box!
Try my curriculum resources for FREE!
I am sharing everything you need to teach letter Aa in my Letter of the Week Curriculum with the link below.
You’ll see just how easy and engaging the materials are, and this will save you so much time.
I know how hard and time consuming it is to plan high quality lessons and find materials my students will enjoy.
I absolutely love sharing what I create with other teachers, educators and homeschool families.
I hope you love these activities as much as we do!
CLICK HERE to see what I teach on the 1st Day of Kindergarten
CLICK HERE to visit my Pre-K Homepage
CLICK HERE to print my FREE August Lesson Plans
CLICK HERE to print my FREE September Lesson Plans
CLICK HERE to visit my Homeschooling Blog