Diving Into Learning: Letter Recognition and Fine Motor Activities

In my class, we focus on a letter a week until we go through all of the letters. With each letter we always have a couple of different writing sheets to practice letter formation (these are differentiated because at the pre-k level I have a wide range of writing abilities). Generally on Mondays I introduce the both the upper and lowercase letter and we talk about how they are similar and different. I also do a large group writing activity where all of the students have a dry erase board and we practice the letter formation together. On Tuesdays we do an activity where we search for the letter, such as either in a poem or in a big book. Wednesdays and Thursdays we practice making the letter sound and make a list of words that start with that letter (or sometimes words that have that letter in it). Fridays we review and play games to practice the letter sound.

Throughout the entire week there are a variety of activities available in the writing and literacy centers, and art center to work on letter recognition and fine motor skills. In the writing and literacy center there is always blank paper, worksheets, dry erase boards and dry erase worksheets available for students to use. There are sorting games such as sorting the upper and lowercase letters, sorting the letter from other letters, file folder games and finding the letter in a variety of print. One of my students favorite activities is to cut out the upper and lowercase letters and sort them into upper and lowercase groups (I love this packet from TPT, it has so many great activities in it!). For my more advance students there are sight word activities available that involve the letter of the week. Usually on either Monday or Tuesday is when we do our letter art activity. We have different activities that rotate different weeks to practice different skills. One activity is tracing the letter from a letter stencil and then cutting it out. Another activity is tracing the upper and lowercase letter from a stencil and either paint it, color it or decorating it with some sort of art material (such as shaving cream, puffy paint, feathers, sand, glitter). An additional activity is to make an animal using the letter (and yay for pinterest for having lots of ideas for this). I like having different craft projects to do instead of doing the same type every week to practice different skills (such as tracing, painting/coloring in the lines, cutting).