Letter I

Welcome back!! I hope you had a great Christmas/New Years! We're easing back into normal life and just this week, picked up where we left off (back in November!) on our letters. It's actually been really nice getting back into a routine and we took so much time off that Rowin was pretty excited to jump back in.
If you know my kids, you know that Rayna is not one to sit and play quietly by herself while I work with Rowin. She wants to do whatever he's doing and if she can't, well then, she'll go play in the toilet or my underwear drawer. SO, for each day that I planned activities for Rowin, I also planned a simple activity for her to do as well.

Here's a look at our first week back...

Day 1:

• Bible story (still plugging along in our Bible Storybook) and memory verse (Romans 3:23)
• Reviewed A-H flashcards (Letter, Sound, Word)
• Introduced I
• Letter Maze
  
  Free printable here
  
  
• Letter Matching Game-We used two different sets of letter flashcards (only letters A-I) and Rowin had to find the two pictures that started with the same letter sound

*Toddler Activity: Coloring book pages and crayons

Day 2:

• Bible story/memory verse
• Reviewed A-I
• I modeled how to write a capital I and then we air wrote five capital I's, using the prompt "Big line down, across the top, across the bottom." We did five jumping jacks in between each time. 
• Dot letter Page

Free printable here

• Block Letter-first Rowin traced the I with his finger two times, then he filled it in with play dough

Free printable here

• Play Dough Playing Time :) 

*Toddler Activity: Dot markers and computer paper

Day 3:

• Bible Story/memory verse
• Reviewed A-I (I spread them out on the carpet and he had to put them in order, A-I, saying each letter as he grabbed it.)
• Writing
• I modeled how to write a capital I on a chalkboard
• Rowin erased it with a wet paper towel (using the verbal prompt)
• Then he erased it with a dry paper towel
• Finally he wrote one himself with chalk
• We repeated the process for lowercase i
• Ice Cream Craft

• Marshmallow Igloo-Rowin used marshmallows to build his own i-i-igloo.

*Toddler Activity: Chalk/chalkboard and puff balls (I made the mistake of giving her the puff balls AFTER I let her eat a few marshmallows so she tried to eat all the puff balls....never a dull moment.)

***We also found this awesome app at the library: LetterSchool ($4.99)
It teaches you how to write each letter, then lets you practice tracing and writing it. Lots of fun interactive images for each letter-stars, fireworks, etc. Rowin loved it so we went home and bought it!

A few similar, FREE apps are:

• ABC Writing
• Tracing ABC
• Letter Writing
• Letter Workbook

One thing to look for though, if you're looking for a writing practice app-make sure the lowercase letters are traditional manuscript, not d'nealian. D'nealian is slanted and a bit curvy/loopy-this is not what is taught in schools anymore, so you wouldn't want to teach your preschooler this way and then have them have to relearn another way in a year or two.