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This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
Whether you live in a part of the world that gets big snowstorms or not, setting up a preschool winter theme is always a good idea after you come back from Christmas vacation. Not only is there a long time till the next themed holiday, but snow, and snowmen (and snowwomen!), make for cute additions to any winter lesson plan. This snowman spot the lowercase letter activity helps students develop their lowercase letter recognition skills while getting into the winter spirit.
Developing Lowercase Letter Recognition
The preschool classroom is full of essential skills that need to be mastered before students enter their formal schooling years. These include developing an understanding of the number system, learning social skills to help them cope in a classroom full of peers, and starting to make sense of the printed words around them. This last skill underpins everything they will do in their early literacy work which is why you need to spend so much time practicing and revisiting their lowercase letter recognition skills. As with any essential skill in preschool, the best way to keep students engaged is to gamify them, and these spot the lowercase letter activities will get your students practicing all season long.
Preparing Snowman Spot the Lowercase Letter Clip Cards
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This preschool winter theme activity is a great grab and go literacy center; just download the pack, print off a group set of the letter that you’re working on and you’re ready to go. Consider laminating them if you’re asking students to use a dry erase marker to spot the lowercase letter.
Extension Activities For Lowercase Letter Recognition
These snowman literacy activities are simple to use; just download the pack and print off a class set of the letter that you’re working on that week. Students then get a marker and find all the instances of the target lowercase letter on the page. As they get used to this activity, try some of these extension tasks in your winter lesson plan:
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Choose fine motor – instead of using a marker to show where the lowercase letters are, you could find small objects (think eraser caps or winter themed pompoms) for students use to mark the correct answers. This will help them develop their fine motor skills and hand eye coordination as well as their early literacy skills.
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Make it a race – in the spirit of gamify literacy skills, you can give your students a little friendly competition by giving two (or more!) students the same card and ask them to find all the lowercase letters first. If you want to teach students the importance of self-improvement, try timing each student and then challenging them to beat their best times.
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Create their own – part of any winter lesson plan that focuses on early literacy has to teach students how to transition from being able to recognize each lowercase letter to being able to write it. Asking students to create their own snowman literacy activities such as spot the lowercase letter will give them a lot of repeated practice at letter formation as well as making a fun challenge for a friend to solve.
Like this? Then you’ll love my 10 Snow Themed Literacy and Math Centers. These easy-prep games will get your students working on letters, phonics, numbers and more!
Games included:
1) Snowflake Pick and Cover Letters – Kids will pick letter cards and match them with the letters on the playing mat until all letters have been identified.
2) Snowflake Sight Words Bingo – 8 different bingo cards provided for use in small groups. 40 Pre-primer sight words are included.
3) Snowball Letters and Numbers Sorting – Sort the snowballs according to upper and lowercase or letters vs numbers.
4) Snowflake Vowel Sound Sorting – Print out the sorting mat and place the picture cards in the correct columns based on their vowel sounds.
5) Snowflake Write the Room Alphabet – Hunt around the room for a letter card and match the pictures on the recording sheet to complete the game.
6) Snowman Count and Write Numbers – Kids will practice writing number words 1-10. There are 2 versions included – with numbers and with ten frames.
7) Snowflake Counting Clip Cards – Develop fine motor skills and math skills in this 1-20 counting game.
8) Winter Numbers Memory Match – Flip 2 cards over at a time to find matching number pairs until all the numbers have been matched up.
9) Snowman Ten Frame Mats – Adorable counting mats with ten frames for one to one correspondence and counting practice. You can use this with cotton wool ‘snow’, pompoms, buttons, etc.
10) Snowflake Visual Discrimination Cards- Find the 2 matching snowflakes from a group of 6. There are 16 cards provided.
Check it out for more ready-to-go fun!
Fun Books For Winter:
Other Printables for Your Winter Lesson Plan:
1) Penguin Sight Words Write the Room – Kids will love this printable penguin theme pre-primer sight words write the room activity! It’s perfect for a winter literacy center in kindergarten and even first grade.
2) Penguin and Fish Letter Matching– Printable penguin and fish themed game to pair up upper and lowercase letters.
3) Counting to 20 with Ice Skates – Kindergarten and 1st-grade students will work on counting to 20 and one to one correspondence in this free ice skating activity. Use this as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on printable twenty frame game for your homeschool.
4) Snowman Ten Frame Mats – Students in preschool to 1st grade will practice counting, making 10, one to one correspondence, subitizing and writing numbers with these snowman ten frame mats. Use this printable as a fun winter math center in your classroom or as a hands-on addition activity for your homeschooling kids.
5) Winter Printable Worksheets Pack – Your kids will love this 50-page winter packet full of fun activities to help them practice literacy, math and fine motor skills. Preschool and kindergarten students will cut, color, count and much more. This activity pack is perfect for indoor leaning time during the cold winter months.
6) Winter Freeze Number Puzzle Strips – 2 printable winter theme puzzles to practice number order from 1 to 20.
7) Snowball Sorting – Sort out numbers from letters or uppercase letters from lowercase letters in this winter-themed activity.
Add These Alphabet Books To Your Library:
Other Printables That Work On Learning Letters:
1) Lowercase Alphabet Tracing Cards – Grab these free lowercase alphabet tracing cards for a quick literacy center that you can use any time of the year! These back to school handwriting practice cards are easy to use; just download and print off copies of the letters you’re studying that week. It’s a great idea to laminate them so you can use them for trace and erase or playdough activities.
2) Flower Alphabet Sound Mats– These cute flower alphabet sound mats will fit beautifully with your outdoor theme and give your students plenty of practice when they’re learning the alphabet. These free alphabet printables show a wide range of common objects and is sure to be your new favorite hands-on preschool letter activity.
3) Space Alphabet Sequence Cards – At a foundational level, you can adapt any of your alphabet order activities to have a space theme, and these cute alphabet sequence clip cards will keep your students engaged with their fun pictures and challenges. They are a great way to have your students work on learning the alphabet independently.
4) Unicorn Alphabet BINGO – This unicorn theme alphabet bingo pack is a fun and engaging way to help preschool students master their letters before starting kindergarten. By having your students play letter recognition games like ABC bingo, you give them opportunities to learn important social interactions like turn taking while also reinforcing the shapes and sounds of each letter.
5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover – Work on letter recognition with your preschool students using this printable farm literacy center. You can use this fun farm alphabet game any time of the year in small groups or individually.
6) Dinosaur Lunch Alphabet Munch – This dino alphabet match game helps students in identifying lowercase letters and identifying capital letters. In this free alphabet printable for preschool, your student will pick a card and find the matching letter on the recording sheet. So simple! Print your dinosaur worksheet for preschool now!
7) Alphabet Word Search Worksheets – These cute alphabet wordsearch worksheets combine alphabet pictures with hunting for words in a grid and wrap up with traceable letters. The best thing about these alphabet tracing worksheets is that they’re ready to use in a matter of minutes but you’ll have a literacy center you can use all year long for plenty of lowercase alphabet tracing practice!
8) Alphabet Tracing Pages – The traceable letters and pictures in these fun trace and erase kinder alphabet worksheets give multiple opportunities for letter shape practice as well as spelling of some longer words. Download this alphabet tracing worksheets pdf and help your students gain mastery over their lowercase alphabet tracing.
Fun Classroom Items for Winter:
Browse Other Popular Literacy Activites:
1) Valentines Alphabet Clip Strips – Kids will choose among 5 different letters on the strip to identify the matching ones.
2) Alphabet Beginning Sound Coloring Pages – Watch your child become more familiar with each letter of the alphabet as they practice coloring in the objects with that beginning sound.
3) Tommy Turkey’s Alphabet Pie – This turkey-themed letter recognition activity is so simple to prep and makes a great file folder game!
4) Pirate Alphabet Playdough Mats – Just print out the playing mats and ask your child to form the letters out using the playdough provided.
5) Farm Alphabet Find and Cover Letters – Work on letter recognition any time of the year!
6) Werewolf Spin and Cover – Kids will race to find all the letters on their mat this Halloween.
7) Bunny Burrows Game – Fun game for small groups or circle time where students will catch a bunny and say out the sound.
8) Letter-saurus Fossil Digging – Dinosaur lovers will enjoy being a pretend paleontologist and finding all the letters.
9) Alphabet Handwriting Worksheets – Practice lowercase and capital letters with these print-and-go pages.
10) Rainy Day Alphabet – 1 printable, many ways to use.
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Related posts:
Nursery Rhymes Themed Literacy and Math Centers
Turkey Number Words 1 to 20 (3 Part Cards)
Christmas Themed Literacy and Math Centers
Halloween Themed Literacy and Math Centers
Acorn Comparing Numbers Worksheet
SantaLand Spot 10 Differences
Bugs and Butterflies Themed Literacy and Math Centers
Flower Alphabet Sound Mats
