Teacher Netta's Notes

One of my favorite new winter works is a snowman letter and sound activity! As seen in the picture, the child completing this task has to put together a snowman by correctly matching both uppercase and lowercase letters and the correct picture that depicts the beginning sound of the letter. 

 

For example, for the letter "L", I showed the students how to lay out the uppercase letters. Once the uppercase "L" was out, the child had to find the lowercase "l" and place it on top of the uppercase "L" to create the full body of the snowman. Finally, the child had to look at the pictures on the hats to figure out which sound belongs with which letter. For the letter "L", the picture is of a log. Most students can do this on their own, but some need a little assistance to hear the sounds associated with the picture. For the picture of the log, I would say "/l/ /l/ (sound of L) log". 

To make this activity clear and organized, I separated the letters into four groups so that the kids can work with 6 or 7 letters in one group instead of all 26 letters.

This activity is very beneficial for the Pre-Kindergarten children because it practices a few skills. It practices the children's knowledge of BOTH uppercase and lowercase letters and the sound that letter makes. While some children are close to mastering these skills, some children still need a lot of practice with these skills. It also practices the child's ability to control their body and be gentle with class materials. All three types of cards (bottom snowball, middle body snowball, and top hat) all need to go into their own on the activity tray. I carefully showed the students how to spread out the cards and put them away in a certain order so that all the alike cards stay together and no pieces are lost. If one small piece is misplaced, other students can't complete the work. So far no pieces have been forgotten or lost which is great!

I appreciate any letter and sound practice that HCMA parents do with their kids! I encourage you to keep working with your children as the more practice they get, the more prepared they'll be to start learning the next step in literacy!