Letter “F”- Letter of the Week Program

Welcome to letter F week!  We began our week reading this cute story about a ferret in our AlphaTales book series.  The children were not familiar with a ferret but they were introduced to many other words in the story that began with the letter F.

I happen to have a fox puppet so I decided to use “Foxy” to show the children how to print the letter F.  The children met Foxy and they shared a few giggles before he took a pencil in his paws and printed a large letter F on our easel paper.  My daycare children used these Crayola twistables to trace their letter F’s. I like to give them different art supplies to print their letters to keep this activity fresh and fun for them.

One child made the connection that printing a letter F is very similar to printing a letter E!  Yippee!  I love when this happens. I invited the kids to use as many different colours as they wish.  When I do this, they often want to print the letter in each colour.  That means they form the letter twelve times. The kids print one colour on top of another. Repeating an action twelve times is a nice start to forming a memory of how to print a letter. 🙂

The next day Foxy visited with the children during circle time.  He brought some fridge magnet letters that we have covered in the last few weeks (Letters A-F).  He is a fox and therefore was having trouble remembering the names of the letters. He couldn’t remember the first letter in his own name either!  Of course the children were delighted to correct his obvious mistakes and remind him of each letter name.

You may not have a Fox Puppet at your house but if you have a puppet use it to review the letter names. Using humour is a wonderful technique with young children. Another option is to make a simple puppet using a piece of fabric or a sock.  I used one of our play silks (I can’t rave about them enough, they are so versatile!) and a ribbon from the craft cupboard.

I just stuck the silk over my hand and tied the ribbon around my wrist as a hair bow.  Meet Fiona the frog!  You could use an old T-shirt or whatever you have on hand.  The children don’t seem to care how elaborate the puppet is, it just needs a great voice and a sense of fun.

We made the Letter F into a fox for our letter craft this week.  My inspiration came from Miss Maren’s Monkeys.  You can find the link here.

I find it is helpful for the children to manipulate and work with the parts of each letter.  We talked about the letter F having three lines.  The big line standing tall and then the two other lines reaching out like arms.

The children make letter F’s with forks and with feathers for some tactile fun.

We also used play-doh one day to make letter F’s and review some other letters. Returning to the same letter five days in a row (even if the activity only takes a few minutes) helps to reinforce letter learning.

Some children learn best by moving their bodies when they learn a new letter or concept. My kids love playing this alphabet version of twister (Super Stretchy ABC Game) we received as a gift last Christmas (thanks Mom!).

You could make your own version of alphabet twister using sidewalk chalk and a homemade spinner.  I made a twister game using an old bed sheet and a sharpie marker a few years ago.  Use what you have at your house and have fun with these letter F ideas!

I hope your Letter F week is Fantastic!