Teaching the alphabet to a toddler can be so much fun if you know what you are doing (lol insert mom anxiety here). Luckily I figured it out and we are ready to start our alphabet learning journey.
Here is a summary of our weekly lesson plan for the letter p activities and pumpkins. At the beginning of the week, Manu could care less about the letters but was very into the pumpkins. I am happy to announce that by the end he was interested in it. #Momwin!
Letter p activities
Here is a full overview of all of the activities we did. Below, is a few photos, tips and comments for it.
You can download the full lesson plan with accompanying lessons for free at the bottom of this post.
Letter p activities Lesson Plan
He still can’t identify it correctly 100% of the time but it was great exposure to start.
Letter P Activity Field Trip
It’s the middle of October so it is pumpkin season. P for Pumpkins! We headed out to a pumpkin patch. The theme that will be the core of our letter P activities this week.
Brother came with us, we picked a few pumpkins to take home. I made sure we had big and small to work later on on this opposites concepts.
Pumpkin Theme Story Time
While at the pumpkin patch, I took out one of my favorite pumpkin books and we read it surrounded with pumpkins. The book It’s Pumpkin Day Mouse!” Talks about a little mouse that has 7 pumpkins and draws different faces to them.
I love this book because starting at 2 years old, we have been working on identifying and managing emotions. This books brings that concept to life and it was so much fun to recreate each face.
You can see our story here, we recorded it as part of our November Bonus activities for our Little Learner’s Club. (and today you get to have a sneak peek!)
Bigger to Smallest
Sorting is a skill that needs to be master by kindergarten. We started by organizing our pumpkins by color, then by size and even weight. It was fund to carry each one and ask him which one was heavier. You could see his little wheels turning while he was working on this critical thinking concept.
Painting Emotions
Just like our book we read during our story time at the pumpkin patch, we grabbed a marker and created different faces on the pumpkins. At first I chose to draw a happy one and then a sad one. Quickly Manu decided he was the one to decide which pumpkin was going to have which face. It was a lot of fun!
We did carve one of the pumpkins later on. I wanted to take that as an opportunity to do some science. We investigated the seeds, the guts, and the smell. A full sensory experience!
Painting Pumpkins
Next, it was art time. I took out a lot of paints to explore and paint freely. It was funny because the first pumpkin he wanted to paint it orange. “Mama, pumpkins are orange, I need orange paint”
kid has a point.
They are still very literal at this age, it not about creating masterpieces and creating beautiful art. It’s about exploring art materials and expressing themselves freely.
So I took out the orange paint and off he went to paint.
The second pumpkin came out better, I used gold and blue and gave him a bag of glitter to sprinkle over.
Letter P Craft
As part of our curriculum, we are building an art ABC book. For the letter p activity we glued pom-poms to the page.
Letter P Playdough Activities
We are obsessed with using playdough. Manu really enjoys it, and now that he is getting more into pretend play he stays longer at the table playing. I created a few playdough templates (available in the Letter P lesson plan below) and presented the tray with the P already made.
At 3 years old, I don’t expect him to create the P but I do want him to notice it. This is why I created it when presenting the pumpkin spice playdough.
You don’t have to make pumpkin spice playdough, you can use regular playdough, but since we are emerge this week in all things pumpkin and I felt inspired, why not!
As apart of the quiet bins, (those bins used when I want him to play independently) I printed and laminated the 5 pumpkins and 2 scare crows. I have him green playdough (that once was two separate balls – yellow and blue) and gave him the idea to create his own pumpkin patch.
We took the opportunity to count the pumpkins. There were 5, like the 5 little pumpkin song and book we have been reading this week at bedtime.
Letter P printable activities
For those times during the day when I needed a little break and a mess-free activity, I used the printables.
Using a do-a-dot marker, we colored all things that start with orange. Vocabulary and pointing to the P was the main goal of this activity.
For the secon one, I drew different faces on dot stickers and the idea was to place them over the pumpkins to give them faces. I was very impressed when he first wanted to do the P. Momwin!
A fun little activity we did that was not planned was to use the leftover pom-poms to use the counting 5 pumpkin card.
Cutting Skills
We have been working on mastering scissors and cutting skills. The idea was to give him the puzzles pre-cut and work on putting them together, but I didn’t get a chance to cut them the night before and when he saw me with scissors he wanted to do it himself. So we switch the activity and cut our 4 fall themed puzzles.
I did print them again and we worked on putting them together after.
Lacing Cards for Motor skills
Lacing cards is an activity I have seen for a while, yet my son was never into it. It wasn’t until I got this toy that he started to be interested in lacing. This card lacing is a lot more challenging than the toy but he still enjoyed doing a few holes up and down.
The printable comes with 4 fall themed lacing cards. Make sure you print them in cardstock and laminate them for durability. These cards were part of our independent play bin I call the quiet bin. I placed it in a pencil case and took it out when it was time to play.
Sensory Play and Pretend Play
My favorite part was the sensory bins and the pretend play area. The printable comes with a few sings to recreate a pumpkin patch at home. It has a menu with all things pumpkin, a wagon parking area (which we used a laundry basket for the wagon.
For sensory play, I always have it ready and available to play with. I use one sensory filler, in this case, I used green peas and then I just with the items we play with. The first one was simple, P puzzle pieces and a few spoons. On the lesson plan there are more ideas we used but you can get super creative when it comes to sensory bins.
Last thoughts on Letter p activities
Just because you choose a letter of the week doesn’t mean you can mix it around with other themes. We combined fall, pumpkins and the letter P to make this week fun and full of play.
Kids learn best through play so let’s set up the right play environment for that.
Download your free lesson plan and activities to recreate this fun at home!
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