OVERVIEW
We spent only one week on Letter L, but this was spread out over 4 days. Typically I have been doing one letter over a 2-week period but I wanted to try something different for a little while and see how we all like it. We mainly focused on L is for Ladybug and L is for Library, with a few other things mixed in like L is for Leaf and Lion and Love and Light.
BIBLE FOCUS
L IS FOR LIGHT
Letter L provided another excuse to read the Nativity story again (we did K is for Kings). We talked about what it means for Jesus to be called “The Light of the World” — how light shines out of darkness. We focused on the star in the sky that God placed over Bethlehem. And, we learned some simple hand motions to the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. This song is also featured in the book Lola at the Library, one of our read alouds with The Peaceful Preschool.
L IS FOR LOVE
The memory verse from The Peaceful Preschool for Letter L is focused on Love. I brought back out our list of 10 Good Deeds we made for The Golden Rule (back for our Letter D unit), and we reviewed each item and talked about loving our neighbors. Since we are going to see lots of family coming up for the holidays we talked about what it would look like for us to love them well. We also made simple leave rubbings on to paper that I cut in to hearts.
BOOKS
L is for Ladybug Books
- The Grouchy Ladybug*
- Ladybug Girl
- Ten Little Ladybugs
- The Big Book of Bugs (pages 14-15)
L is for Library Books
L is for Lion Books
*From The Peaceful Preschool book list
PHONICS & LETTER FORMATION
For Letter L we played a lot with our 3-Part Card set that matches the set from Simply Learning. My son and I played memory a lot with these cards. We also paired the cards with Letter L objects since we seemed to have a lot. For more details on how we use our 3-Part Cards see this page (and scroll down for the free printables).
We also enjoyed all the Ladybug Letter L activities provided by Simply Learning.
- Stamp It! Write It! Poke It!
- Line tracing (prewriting & fine motor skills)
- Letter L search and match
For the line tracing, I always slip the page inside a write-and-wipe pouch and have the kids do it with dry erase markers. That way, if they mess up they can have a chance to re-do it. And, they can revisit it again on a different day. I do this with mazes as well.
L IS FOR LADYBUG
READ ALOUD
CLOCK LEARNING
The Grouchy Ladybug books goes through hours in the day and has little clocks on each page, so we went through and talked about how the little hand shows the hours. My son has already been interested in clock learning so we did not spend a ton of time on this. Later in the day I presented the blank circle and basket of rocks and asked him to assemble the clock all on his own.
SONG
Since we were working on counting to 12, we watched this old Sesame Street video that my husband found. It’s super random, called The Ladybug Picnic, but is has a nice counting-to-12 rhythm that both my kids have picked up.
COUNTING & NATURE STUDY
We read our ladybug page from The Big Book of Bugs and talked about how ladybugs like to eat aphids.
I set up this counting activity for my son: Ladybugs on a Leaf. I wanted to add aphids to the leaf to add to the learning and make it fun (he likes to pretend animals are eating things, naturally). We had leftover dyed corn kernels from a Thanksgiving project so we just used those.
I made the ladybug wood craft counters using the following:
- 1.5″ wood craft circles
- This ladybug page I created with a free image
- 1.25″ circle hole punch
- Mod Podge
- Foam brush
FINE MOTOR SKILLS & ART
My kids love hole punching paper! They spent so much time on this, it was great!
I pre-cut the green leaf you see in the photo, then together we cut 1.25″ circles for the red part of the ladybug, 1″ circles for the black head, and then just a regular hole punch for the dots. Get your glue stick out and piece it all together to make a collage of ladybugs on a leaf. LOTS of fine motor skills here, plus they punched a bunch more holes and cut strips of paper until their hearts’ content.
L IS FOR LIBRARY
READ ALOUD
PLAY, PHONICS, COUNTING, FINE MOTOR SKILLS
We turned our entire living room in to a pretend library, moving most of our books to a couple of shelves there. We set up an area to check books out, took turns being the librarian, and even had little library cards. We read multiple stories together “story time” style.
I cut out these little paper books and labeled them A-Z, so the librarian kiddos had to sort them A to Z on the shelves.
We then used construction paper, scissors, crayons, and tape to make mini books for our dolls and pretended to read them stories.
LITTLE NAME BOOKS
My son’s name begins with the letter L so we worked on name writing.
 |
 |
Since we made little books for our dolls (L is for Library) I also had each kid make themselves a little name book. I made these little rectangle pages, each one representing ONE letter of their name with an image corresponding to each letter of their name (e.g. O is for Owl, L is for Ladybug).
The tab on the left hand of the cutout card is what I used to tape each piece together in sequence, so that the little book could be folded up accordion style, and then they can lay it totally flat and see their whole name written out.
My son (4) worked on writing each letter and the filled his name book with his letters. Then, he helped me pick out letter stamps for my daughter’s (2) name book. She then stamped each page of her book with the corresponding letters. She has V for Volcano in her name which was the clear favorite!
LIBRARY FIELD TRIP
Later, we went to our library and played, found new books to read, and did a little library shelving learning: I had a list of a few books to find specifically by author and showed my son how I go about finding the book I’m looking for.
The kids (as always) helped return some books we had plus check out new ones. Libraries are the best! We are so grateful for ours.
OTHER LETTER L LEARNING
LEAF LION CRAFT
Simple Lion leaf craft — I made the lion face on a piece of paper and they used Elmer’s glue to attach leaves around the face to look like a lion’s mane. Super easy and my son LOVED this: he made 3 more (and my 2 year old made one)!
Lion stories we read:
- Daniel and the scary sleepover (The Jesus Storybook Bible)
- The Lion and the Bird
- Library Lion
LEAF LACING CARDS
I took simple images of leaf shapes and printed them on to colored card stock, laminated them, punched holes around the edges and had the kids lace the cards.. This works for a simple nature study: leaf shapes. It also works for color matching: the color strings match the cards. And, of course fine motor skills: lacing requires some extra work and concentration.
MAKE LEMONADE
For some practical life skills my kids worked on juicing lemons — I needed some of the juice for an appetizer I was making, but then we used the rest to make lemonade! The juicing is definitely hard work for little hands — I helped after they each gave it a try.
Also note: I had to help my son cut the lemon with his knife–the nylon knife didn’t quite work as well as I had hoped.
TAKING L OUTDOORS!
 |
 |
 |
 |
There is a lot of L-themed fun to be had outdoors:
- Rake leaves
- Run in leaf piles
- Climb on logs
- Visit a lake
- Climb a ladder
THE SILVAN REVERIE 