Z is the End of the Alphabet Party!

We’ve reached the end of the alphabet and today we got to party!

• Sing the ABC song … Clap or jump up high when you get to Z!

 

• Read “The Z Was Zapped” by Chris VanAllsburg … available here.

Kipper's A to Z

Dr. Seuss's ABC

A to Z

• Read several other A-Z books … we alternated reading a book with an activity.

• ABC Banner (& a game, of course) … every party needs a banner. My kids loved this.
  1. Print the ABCs on colorful cardstock.
     • NOTE: if you want to print the banner we made, just click here and put 8 pages of cardstock in your printer in this order: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, purple, blue (Y and Z will print on their own page.)
     • Cut the bottom 1” off each page, then cut in half horizontally and vertically. Make sense?!
  2. Scatter the letter cards around the room.
  3. String a ribbon across the room (for your banner).
  4. Have the kids take turns finding the letters in alphabetical order.
  5. As they find the letters, attach them to your party banner! I just use paper clips. Works great! You could also use clothespins with matching ABCs written on them!

 

• Play ABC Bingo!
  1. Print out a blank 5x6 grid. Click here to print the card we used.
  2. Use ABC stickers and have the kids stick one letter in each square. We put star stickers in the four extra squares. You could also just write one letter in each square.
  3. Let them reach into a bag of magnet letters and call out the letter they picked.
  4. Mark the squares with small treats, dot markers, stickers, anything!

• ABC Treasure Hunt … every party needs a treasure hunt
  1. Make simple clues for each letter A to Z.
  2. I used letter stickers on the clue cards to emphasize each letter. They couldn’t read the clues, but they knew which letter we were on!
  3. Hide them all around the house!
  4. For our treasure, I got the kids some fun activity sticker books (Wal-Mart $1.00) and other summer-y things (chalk, playground balls).

 

• Make ABC cookies … we spent yesterday making a mess cookies and got to eat them today!
  1. Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe.
  2. Roll out and cut with ABC cookie cutters. We’ve had these forever, there are some similar ones here.
  3. Bake & frost!

• Watch “LeapFrog: Letter Factory” … one of my very favorite preschool DVDs from Leap Frog.

My 4-year-old already asked if we can start on Number preschool and Shape preschool since we’re done with the alphabet. Whew! I’d better get a move on to keep up with these guys I do have several summer activities planned and I’ll post them as we get them done. I’ll definitely be taking things a little slower though. Enjoy your summer!

Z is for Zoo Day!

• Read “Dear Zoo: A Pop-up Book” by Rod Campbell
  • pop-up: This is a very cute book. There is a flaps version and this pop-up version. I love the pop-up version. “I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet…” and they send lots of different animals but none of them are quite right, until the last page. Cute. My kids love it.

• Zoo Animal Match
  1. Collect pictures of the animals from “Dear Zoo” from magazines or Microsoft Clipart or even pictures you’ve taken yourself at the zoo. I used the animal pictures here and shrunk them down. These are already colored and absolutely adorable! The animals in the story include:

     elephant giraffe lion camel

     snake monkey frog puppy

  2. Color the pictures
  3. Cut the pictures in half.
  4. Mix them up and let the kids make zoo animal matches!

• Read “Zookeeper” by Heather Miller
  • non-fiction: Check your library for any book about zookeepers. I love the books that have real life pictures in them.
• Zookeeper, May I? … a simplified version of Mother, May I.
  1. Stand at one end of the room and have the kids stand at the other end.
  2. You say, “Take 3 elephant steps forward.”
  3. Have the kids say, “Zookeeper, may I?”
  4. Say, “Yes, you may.”
  5. Repeat with other zoo animal steps:
     • 4 kangaroo hops
     • 2 snake slithers (they’ll think of something!)
     • 2 lion leaps
     • 3 frog jumps
  6. The first one to reach you can be the next zookeeper!

• Zoo Stamps
  1. Make several words strips with zoo animal names written on each (ELEPHANT on one, TIGER on another…)
  2. TIP: Ready to print word strips from ABCTeach here! Just click on Word Wall: Zoo.
  3. Call out a letter.
  4. Have the kids use a zoo animals stamp to stamp that letter. Or use any stamps you have. We don’t use stamps very often so my kids were thrilled!
  5. Repeat until all letters are stamped.
  6. If you want to continue the game, have them choose another zoo word strip.

• Read “Animal Strike at the Zoo. It's True!” by Karma Wilson … available here. 
  • Another fun one: we really enjoyed reading this book too. I love all of Karma Wilson’s book (she writes the bear books). The rhymes and illustrations are entertaining and flow just right.

 

• Trip to the Zoo!
  1. If possible, take a day trip to the zoo!
  2. If you want to, make a simple checklist of animals to look for.
  3. Or let your kids take a picture of each animal.

• Snack Idea: Animal Crackers