Alright boys and girls! Time to get your creativity caps on and the art supplies handy, because today, we’re learning about the letter O! So many wonderful words start with the letter O, like onion, over, oven, and orange. Even common phrases we read in story books start with O, like “once upon a time.” To help us learn this letter, we’re going to do an arts & crafts project with our favorite animal that starts with O: an octopus in the ocean.

We’re going to learn how to create a toilet paper roll octopus! To get started, here’s the supplies that you’ll need:

• A toilet paper roll 
• Acrylic paint or markers
• Googly eyes
• A glue stick
• A scissors
• A black sharpie

First, start by cutting 1.5 inch long slits at the bottom of the toilet paper roll with your scissors. Then push the roll down on a flat surface, so that the slits spread out like octopus legs. Next, grab your acrylic paint and paint the outside of your octopus a bold color of your choosing. Paint the interior of the roll at the top and underneath the legs a different color for contrast. Then, use a glue stick to stick on some googly eyes or feel free to draw the eyes on with a black sharpie. 

Use a black sharpie to add a happy smile onto that octopus face, because he or she is happy to be alive and in your home! Finally, feel free to add on stickers, gems, or other decorations to your heart’s content! Don’t forget to create 3-4 of these guys so your octopus can have some friends.

These octopuses are taking over the world of Pinterest right now, as parents are starting to get exponentially more creative with keeping their kids stimulated at home. See the photo of Holly Homer’s toilet paper roll octopus to catch a glimpse of the potential here!

Lastly, we’ve created a coloring book illustration of an octopus in his natural habitat. Octopuses are fascinating creatures with three hearts, high intelligence, and the capability to camouflage themselves by changing color. Feel free to print out copies and invite your kids to color this scene! 

Know any other fun preschool activities that start with the letter O? Feel free to share them with us in the comments below!

The letter “P” starts plenty of words that provide perfect activities for your preschool child! Especially these days, when children are home from school, parents are looking for low maintenance, easy to set up activities. This one is great for staying inside on a rainy day, keeping your kids entertained for a bit, and enjoying a fun final product that they can keep!

Additional Letters

• Letter O Activities for Preschool
• Letter Q Activities for Preschool

Today we will be learning how to make your own puzzle!

All you need for this project is to download and print the picture below! You’ll need a pair of scissors, some markers, crayons, or colored pencils, and one imaginative child. 

Start by having them color a picture on the puzzle image below, anything that they like! Once they’ve completed their masterpiece, either you or your child can carefully cut out the puzzle pieces, mix them up, and try to put the picture together again like a puzzle. 

If you have two kids, all the better! Have each of them make a puzzle, cut it out, and then swap them so the activity lasts even longer. To make it a little bit harder (or buy yourself a few extra minutes of quiet, entertained kids) you could even mix the multiple puzzles together and have your kids try to put their puzzles back together from the one pile.

Some puzzle ideas:

• Draw your favorite animal.
• Draw your favorite food.
• Draw your family.
• Draw your house.
• Draw their favorite movie character.
• Draw their favorite thing to do.

Parents are always looking for new activities for their kids to do, especially when they’re stuck inside! These projects give you double the value since the activity is to create an activity! Your preschooler will be able to create their own puzzle and then put it together, again and again, giving them further entertainment while you take care of whatever you need to do.

“Qq” is a hard one… there are not a ton of things that start with the letter Q.  There is Queen of course, but since we had just done K is for King I didn’t want to go there.  So instead, we did Q is for “Quack!”  It ended up being a lot of fun!

Additional Letters

• Letter P Activities for Preschool
• Letter R Activities for Preschool

During circle time we reviewed our numbers, letters, and letter sounds.  Then we introduced the letter Q by singing “Five Little ducks Went Out to Play.”

Five little ducks went out to play
Over the hills and far away
When old mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack”
Four little ducks came waddling back

Repeat and count down to one

One little duck went out to play
Over the hills and far away
When old mother duck said, “Quack, quack, quack”
No little ducks came waddling back
But when old Father duck said, “quack, quack, quack, quack, quack!!!!!”
All five ducks came waddling back! 

We made theses cute little paper plate ducks.  The ducks stand up on their own but can also lay flat and slide right into a page protector in their alphabet binders we have been working on.

SUPPLIES:
1 paper plate
yellow paint (or yellow crayon)
orange and yellow construction paper
glue
2 googley eyes

1.  Let the kids paint or color the paper plate yellow.  When the plate is dry fold it in half.
2.  While it is drying, fold a piece of yellow construction paper in half.  Help them trace their hand on the yellow paper.  Having them trace their own hand or their friends hand is a great fine motor activity for little guys!  Plus, they love doing it!
3.  Cut out the traced hands out and make a circle for the ducks head with the left over yellow paper.  Make a beak and duck feet with the orange construction paper.  You want to keep the duck feet connected with a 3 to 4 inch thin rectangle.  Fold in half along the thin rectangle connecting the feet.
4.  Glue the feet to the bottom of the open plate, putting one foot on each side.  Glue on the head, beak, and eyes.  Use the cut out handprints for the ducks tail feathers byt gluing one hand to each side of the paper plate.

We also painted with Q-tips.  The kids had fun with this and thought it was great to paint with something other than a paint brush or their fingers.  The pictures turned out pretty cute.  I glued a couple Q-tips to the paper so the kids would remember what they did when they look back at their picture in their alphabet books.

Letter V is an easy one to draw, but it can be awfully tough mastering how to say it. In fact, most kids won’t learn to properly pronounce this sound until they are 4-5 years old! That being said, you and your little one can still have plenty of fun with letter V.

You can use the included printable to play two simple games that focus on that tricky letter V sound. Download and print the sheet, then carefully cut apart the vegetable cards. Be sure to keep them in a resealable plastic bag in between play sessions so they won’t get lost.

Game #1: Matching

• Separate the vegetable cards into two equal sets – one for you, one for your preschooler.
• Lay your preschooler’s vegetables in a row on the table or floor in front of them.
• One by one, show a card to your preschooler and ask, “Where is this vegetable?”
• If they can point to the match, you declare “Victory! V is for Vegetable!”

Game #2: Making Soup

• Get a small cooking pot and wooden spoon from the kitchen.
• Explain that you are going to make Letter V soup together. Only things that start with v can be added to the soup!
• Move through the room together, proposing different items for your soup. First, ask your preschooler about some items that definitely don’t qualify. For example, “Pepper! I like pepper. Does pepper start with v?” (Little people love to call out silly grownups when they get something wrong, so expect some very energetic no’s!)
• Every few letters, circle back to your pile of vegetable cards. “How about vegetable? Does vegetable start with V?” Add one or two of your cards to the pot.
• Once you’ve gone through a few rounds of this, stir up your soup and take some pretend bites together.
• If you have other V-items around, turn them into soup too! A small bottle of vanilla, a toy van, paper valentines, and wild-growing violets from the yard are all great choices.

After playing hard, you may both need a snack. You can learn the shape of letter V by shaping it out of real vegetables. Carrot sticks, celery, and strips of cucumber are all nice, straight shapes that are suitable for making V’s.

Don’t be vexed – verily, a valiant effort will vanquish your troubles with vicious, villainous Letter V!

Terrific, tremendous, and tasty are all words that start with the letter “T”, and they also describe today’s special “T”-themed activity: Tic-Tac-Taco! 

This fun and re-usable activity includes a printable game board and pieces that kids can color however they want before cutting them out to use as moveable game pieces. All you need to get started is a printer and some crayons, markers, or colored pencils.

The first step to this activity is to print out the following game board:

While the board comes pre-colored, you can always choose to print it in black and white to let your kids have complete control over how it looks after they have decorated it.

Once you have the game board ready, it’s time to print out your tic-tac-taco pieces. What sets this game apart from regular tic-tac-toe is that instead of playing with Xs and Os, this version of the game uses two different foods that start with the letter T: tacos and tortilla chips. Even better, these game pieces can be cleared off the board and re-used time and again so you aren’t using an entirely new sheet of paper every time you play!  

To get your game pieces, print out the following sheet and have your kids color in the tacos and tortilla chips however they want. Once they have been brought to vibrant life, it’s time to play! 

If you’re making your way through the alphabet with your preschooler, it’s easy to get stuck on what seems to be the simplest letters! In trying to find inspiration for the later letters in the alphabet, I realized that so many activities for learning the letter “s” are about snakes. Yikes! I know I hate snakes, and maybe you and your kid do too. What if you want something a little more fun and seasonal? 

For this activity, we’re going to be focused on one of my favorite flowers, and one of my favorite “s” words: sunflowers! This activity is perfect for the spring and summer, which are also great seasons to get your preschooler familiar with the letter “s”. Today, we’re making paper plate sunflowers! This craft is simple, inexpensive, and uses materials you’re likely to already have around your house! 

Here’s what you need: 

• 1 paper plate
• 1 craft stick
• 1 piece of green foam paper
• Yellow paint
• Green paint
• Handful of sunflower seeds
• Scissors
• Glue

First, cut small triangles out of the rim of your paper plate. Show your child how to cut on an angle so the gaps look like flower petals. Cut all the way around the plate. Then, paint the craft stick green and the paper plate yellow. Let the paint dry and then begin to glue the sunflower seeds to the middle of the plate. 

At this point you can also cut two small leaves from the green foam paper and glue them to the craft stick. Now you’re ready to glue the craft stick to the back of the paper plate to act as your stem, and your paper plate sunflower is complete! 

Looking for more ways to teach your child the letter “s”? Check out the printable coloring page of a beautiful sunflower field below! 

Not sure how to teach the necessary letter N? You’ve come to the right place. 

For kids who are preschool aged and who are starting to learn the alphabet, it’s fun to find different activities to help them learn the letters. That way, there’s something to remember the letters by! It’s always fun to start teaching your kids new things, and with different activities, not only will you be able to keep them busy but you’ll also be able to make some memories with them. 

While there are tons of different words starting with the letter “N,” there’s nothing more magical than the starry night sky. 

That’s why we thought it would be fun to teach the letter “N” by creating a beautiful glow in the dark night sky for your child’s bedroom ceiling. Let’s get started. 

Here’s what you’ll need. 

To get set up to make these glow in the dark stars, you won’t need many materials. You’ll definitely need to supervise your preschooler while you use some spray paint that’s involved, but otherwise, this is a no muss no fuss type of craft! 

These are the materials you’ll need to create your night sky: 

• Scissors
• Old cereal boxes 
• White paint 
• Glue dots or command strips 
• Glow in the dark spray paint (you don’t have to use spray paint if you’d like to use a paint you can brush on instead) 

The first step is to outline your constellations and stars on the cereal box. You can use the stencils below for your stars! 

Your next step is to paint the stars, moons, and other planets of your night sky white. Let them dry completely before moving on to the next step. Step three is to use your glow in the dark paint and coat the night sky stars, moons, and planets with several thin coats of the paint. 

Charge your night sky by leaving it out in the light for 15-20 minutes where the light or the sun can charge the glow in the dark paint. Then you’ll be ready to stick your stars on the ceiling and create a beautiful night sky! 

You need the letter “N”, so here are (n)ine other words that start with “N”: 

• Nose
• Nickel
• Nurse
• Ninja
• Necklace
• Name
• Noise
• Nana
• Noodles 

The letter “I” is an important one for preschoolers to learn. However, this letter can be tricky because, like the other vowels, “I” makes two different sounds.

You can hear the “long I” in many words your preschooler already knows – words like “smile”, “time”, and “night-night”.  “Short I” also crops up in plenty of common words like “fish”, “sit”, and “tickle.”

For this letter with TWO sounds, it only makes sense to have TWO different fun activities. First up – homemade Long-I ice cream!

Whipping up a micro-batch of ice cream at home is quick, fun, and uses real ingredients you probably already have on hand. Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 gallon-size plastic bag
• 1 sandwich-size plastic bag
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla 
• Ice
• ¼ cup salt (rock salt or kosher salt work best)

Add your half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla to the sandwich-size bag. Close it up, eliminating any air from the bag as best you can. (Make sure the bag is completely sealed – you don’t want salt getting in and ruining the ice cream!)

Place your bag of ice cream mix into the gallon-size bag. Fill the gallon-size bag about halfway with ice, then add your salt. Seal up the gallon-size bag and shake, shake, shake! After shaking for 6-8 minutes, remove the sandwich-size bag. Rinse it well with cool water to remove all the salt, then squeeze into a bowl and enjoy.

For your next batch, add a little chocolate syrup, peppermint extract, fresh fruit, or crushed candy. You could even try a dash of food coloring to create something totally unexpected. You definitely won’t find blue vanilla with strawberry and chocolate chips in any grocery store.

When your little ice cream chef is ready to move on, share the coloring page below. See how many “I” words you can find together.

So many exciting and extraordinary words start with the letter E. For preschoolers who are starting to work with the alphabet it’s always fun to mix in new and creative activities that involve the letters of the alphabet. Today we are sharing with you fun activities to do with preschoolers that involve the letter E.

This activity requires very little mess, which also means very little clean up for you, mom. For this activity you’ll just need some colored pencils or crayons and the free to use picture for coloring.

We will be coloring a beautiful majestic elephant and a cute egg. Both of these things start with the letter E.  While sharing them with your preschooler you can help them make the letter E sound and invite them to color in the picture.

While things in the world may not seem so positive right now, elephants are beautiful creatures that symbolize many great things. While your kids are coloring their pictures, take this time to talk with them about elephants and how people believe they symbolize good luck, power, and wisdom – all things that are great to be reminded of.

“Eggs” are great for helping preschoolers learn the letter e because of the many related words that start with E.   When it comes to eggs – you (e)at them, they give you (e)nergy and they are (e)xtra delicious. Make your egg colorful and fun! Something that really shows your personality. 

In the comments below, feel free to share other activities that can help preschoolers learn the letter E.  

(E)ight other fun words that start with E:

1. Earth
2. Empathy
3. Excitement 
4. Elbow
5. Engine
6. Eye
7. Exit 
8. Entry

So my six year old has been begging for quite a while now to sell lemonade.  I have been crazy busy with moving and kept distracting him and putting him off.  I finally gave in this week.

Why in the world didn’t I let them do this sooner???  Seriously!!!!!  It kept them so busy!!!  I would let them have one every single day if it didn’t bug the neighbors!

They spent all day coloring signs… really nice detailed signs!  Apparently they are more motivated to really do a good job if they think it will make them more money!$!$!

So after working all day on signs they set up a little table with cups and waved and jumped at every car that drove by… really the cutest thing ever!

I decided that anyone who drives past a lemonade stand without stopping is completely heartless!

We turned the lemonade stand into a math lesson.  The kids counted the money and then divided it up evenly.  They also figured out how much profit they made after subtracting the cost for the lemonade.

The boys each ended up with $3.75 after an hour and half of selling 25 cent cups of juice.  They were very excited!

Not bad huh!  The kids were busy, I got tons of stuff done, and they actually learned something!