Preschool Letter K

Before beginning our Preschool Letter K activities, my four munchkins and I enjoyed a two week break for the Australian winter school holidays. My greatest joy was not having to do our usual morning and afternoon school runs!

I know that probably does not sound very exciting, but we had recently moved house, and I was spending almost two hours on the road each day just getting the children to school and coming home again. Having a break from all that driving felt wonderful. We also enjoyed a couple of family days out, celebrated a birthday and even managed to take a trip to the mountains to play in the snow.

Once the holidays were over, we returned to our preschool learning routine and began exploring Letter K. Over four short days, we practiced letter recognition, formation, beginning sounds, CVC words and fine motor skills. Our focus number for the week was number 3.

Before I begin, I should remind you that my little munchkin has always enjoyed learning alongside his older brothers and sister. Whenever they were doing their homework, he liked to stay close and watch all the action. He often peeked over their shoulders while they wrote, read and completed their schoolwork, so he had already picked up quite a bit before we formally introduced each preschool letter.

Day 1: Introducing Preschool Letter K and Number 3

We began our Preschool Letter K activities with our (TpT) Alphabet Play Dough Mats (K-R link here).

As I held up the Letter K mat and prepared to introduce the letter and its sound, Filip looked at it and said, “That’s a kicking k, and it says /k/. It’s almost like c, but it doesn’t look the same.”

There you have it. He managed to summarize my planned introduction in two sentences! We talked about how K and hard C can represent the same sound in words, even though the letters look different. Then we moved on to the hands on part of our lesson.

Filip began by finger tracing uppercase and lowercase K. Finger tracing allowed him to concentrate on the direction and movement of each line before needing to control a writing tool. Once he was comfortable following the letter paths, he traced them again using a whiteboard marker.

Because Filip already understood that K represented the /k/ sound, my main goal for the week was to help him recognize the letter quickly and distinguish it from other letters. This was especially important because K was less familiar to him than some of the letters we had already studied.

I brought out our Letter K (TpT) Alphabet Vocabulary Cards (K-R link here) and asked Filip to circle all the “kicking k’s.” He examined each card carefully and looked for uppercase and lowercase K among the picture words. Click on either picture to download the Letter K cards.

Next, we used the Letter K page from our (TpT) Alphabet Letter Find unit (K-R link here).

This activity focused on recognizing uppercase and lowercase K among a collection of other letters. Filip had a little trouble telling the two forms apart and announced that he was simply going to dot all of them purple. Apparently, purple was the solution to the problem!

We slowed down and compared the letters together before he continued. Click on the picture to get the Letter K page.

We also practiced letter formation using a Letter K handwriting page from The Measured Mom. This gave Filip a chance to move from the larger reusable mat to smaller printed letters and practice controlling his pencil more carefully.

We then moved on to our focus number for the week, which was number 3. We used our (TpT) Number Play Dough Mats (K-R link here).

Filip began by finger tracing the large number 3. Once he could follow the numeral’s curved path, he traced it again using a whiteboard marker. Beginning with his finger helped him learn the movement before adding the extra challenge of controlling the marker.

We finished Day 1 with a free number cut and paste worksheet. Filip matched different representations of number 3 before cutting and gluing them into place.

By this stage, he had also become more confident sounding out words and often tried to read anything that looked interesting. When he saw the word “three,” he slowly sounded out each letter, but the word did not sound quite right.

We underlined some of the special letter patterns using different colors and tried again. This time, the word sounded just right. It was a lovely reminder that even during a number activity, there are often opportunities to practice early reading skills.

Day 2: Letter K Play Dough and Fine Motor Practice

We started Day 2 by returning to our (TpT) Letter K Play Dough Mats (K-R link here). Repeating the activity gave Filip another opportunity to remember the letter formation we had practiced the day before, but this time he used play dough instead of a marker.

Rather than rolling the play dough into long ropes, Filip pinched off one small piece at a time and pressed each piece onto the letters. It created a rather stunning textured look and gave his fingers plenty of work to do.

We had to keep our preschool time very short that day, so we only managed to squeeze in one number activity. Filip used play dough to form number 3 and added three pieces to the ten frame.

Although it was a short lesson, returning to the same letter and number was still useful. Not every preschool day needs to be filled with lots of different activities. Sometimes a small amount of focused practice is just enough.

Filip also completed this Letter K cut and paste page created by Mariela Santillana. He cut out the pictures and decided which ones belonged on the Letter K page.

Day 3: Letter K Puzzle, CVC Words and Number 3 Activities

We came back the following day and began with our (TpT) free Letter K alphabet puzzle (K-R link here).

Filip arranged the puzzle strips in order to reveal the Letter K picture. This activity combined letter learning with visual discrimination, problem solving and sequencing. The completed picture also gave us another opportunity to talk about a word beginning with the /k/ sound.

Next, we worked on strengthening Filip’s finger muscles with a Q-tip painting printable from 1plus1plus1equals1.

He dipped the end of a cotton swab into paint and carefully filled the small circles. This required much more control than using a large dot marker, making it a useful fine motor activity before handwriting.

We then moved into some simple CVC reading with our (TpT) CVC Word Slider Cards (K-R link here).

Filip moved the slider slowly and said each sound as it appeared. He then blended the sounds together to read the complete word. Keeping the sounds hidden until they were needed encouraged him to focus on one part of the word at a time. Click on the picture to get the Letter K word slider cards.

We continued our word work with some (TpT) Beginning K CVC Puzzles. Filip matched the picture pieces with the letters needed to spell each word. Click on the picture to get the Letter K puzzles.

We also used our (TpT) CVC Phoneme Segmentation Cards (K-R link here).

Before placing the letters on each card, we said the word slowly and listened for the beginning, middle and ending sounds. Filip then selected the letters and placed them into the correct boxes. Click on the picture to get the Beginning K word building cards.

After our Letter K work, we returned to number 3. Filip used dot paints to find his way through the (TpT) Number 3 Maze (K-R link here).

He needed to recognize number 3 among the other numerals and follow the correct path across the page. Click on the picture to get the Number 3 maze.

Next, Filip completed a (TpT) Number 3 Concepts Worksheet (K-R link here).

The worksheet gave him practice recognizing the numeral, tracing and writing it, counting a quantity of three and working with number order. Click on the picture to get the Number 3 page.

We finished the day with our (TpT) Number 3 Flip Book.

I drew a small red dot beneath each word to help Filip point to the words one at a time as he “read” the sentences. These dots helped him practice one to one correspondence and understand that each spoken word matched one printed word on the page.

Day 4: CVC Word Work and a Letter K Craft

We came back for a fourth day and completed a (TpT) Beginning K CVC Cut and Paste Worksheet.

After the hands on word sliders, puzzles and word building cards, this worksheet gave Filip an opportunity to use the same skills in a printed format. He looked at each picture, said the word slowly, listened for each sound and selected the letters he needed.

Click on the picture to get the Beginning K page.

We finished our Preschool Letter K week with our (TpT) Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Craft Templates.

Filip made an uppercase K king and a lowercase k kangaroo. The crafts helped connect each letter shape with a familiar word beginning with the /k/ sound. They also gave him practice cutting, arranging and gluing the different paper pieces.

K is for king, and k is for kangaroo! Click on either picture to get the Letter K craft templates.

And there you have it, Preschool Letter K all completed!

Looking back over our four days, we included plenty of repeated practice without completing exactly the same activity each time. Filip traced K with his finger and a marker, formed it with play dough, identified it among other letters and used it to build and read simple CVC words.

We also practiced forming and recognizing number 3, counted groups of three and explored the numeral through play dough, worksheets, a maze and a flip book. Some days were longer than others, but each activity added another small piece to his understanding.

My favorite part of the week was hearing him describe the letter as a “kicking k.” Those little observations and conversations are what made our preschool learning journey so memorable.

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Happy Teaching!

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