Welcome back to the Playful Preschool Series. Signs of Fall are in the air. The past few weeks we have been exploring apples, family and farms. This week’s Playful Preschool theme is harvest and we have a lively gross motor alphabet activity that will help your little one work on recognizing letters and letter sounds!
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Letter Harvest Alphabet Activity
Why We Chose This Alphabet Activity
My kids fell in love with the book Hardscrabble Harvest by Dahlov Ipcar. It’s a story of a family on a farm and the many animals that try to eat their crops. The ducks are eating the strawberries. The crows are snatching the seeds and the raccoons are in the corn at night. After all the hard work of keeping the animals out of the fields, Autumn arrives and the family can harvest and enjoy their bounty.
Many preschoolers are working on letter identification and letter sounds. Inspired by Hardscrabble Harvest, we came up with a gross motor game to to work on alphabet knowledge and sounds. We call it Alphabet Harvest.
Preparing the Letter Harvest
Materials needed for two players: alphabet blocks and 2 construction cones or “home bases”
1. Scatter the alphabet blocks across the grass.
2. Set a cone at each end of the playing area.
How to Play
Each player (an animal) stands at a construction cone (their home). The adult or another child acts as the farmer. The farmer calls, “letter harvest”. The players then run to the field to take a letter. They have to make it back to their home before the farmer tags them.
If the player makes it home before the farmer tags them, they name the letter they harvested. If they are correct, they keep the letter at their home. If they are incorrect, the alphabet letter is returned to the “field”.
If the player is tagged, they have to put the letter back into the field.
Play continues until all of the letters have been harvested.
Variation: For kids who know their letters, they can say the letter sound instead of naming the letter.
My kids loved this activity and worked up quite a sweat playing as did their Mommy. A win-win in my book!
We’ve teamed up with some great bloggers to share themed preschool ideas to help you with your little ones. Each Wednesday you will find literacy, math, science, social studies, cooking, technology, music and more ideas based on a theme.
Amanda from The Educators’ Spin On It share some ideas in the video below about activities that you can do for this week’s theme.
Here are more playful preschool ideas about the harvest theme.
Plan your PRESCHOOL Harvest Theme Learning Week with Activities from the Playful Preschool Education Team:
Learning with Gourds: Comparing, Sorting, and Labeling for Fall by Still Playing School
Corny Science: Will it sink or float? by Capri + 3
Plants We Eat {which are roots, stems, leaves, fruit} by Raising Lifelong Learners
Harvesting in the Carrot Patch by Powerful Mothering
Preschool Math: Measuring Pumpkins by Mom Inspired Life
Making Bread by Rainy Day Mum
#PlayfulPreschool Harvest Time Math by Tiny Tots Adventures
Alphabet Activities: Letter Harvest by Growing Book by Book
There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves Sequencing Cards & Power Point by The Preschool Toolbox Blog
Go Global: Harvests Around the World by The Educators’ Spin On It
Harvest Time: Jamaican Style Music by Learning 2 Walk
Pumpkin Patch Sensory Bin: Practicing Matching with Preschoolers by Life Over C’s
Little Red Hen Activity – Retelling through Sensory Play by Fun-A-Day
Pumpkin Activities by Little Bins for Little Hands
Join us next week when we explore Fall colors!
Kim says
What a fun way to get the kids up and moving while learning their alphabet!
Mary Catherine says
I love hearing about new books – I haven’t read that one yet! Love the movement and literacy involved in the “harvest”!
Erin says
What a great idea for active learning! This would have been awesome for my son with ADHD when he was younger… wondering if I could morph it into something that works for a 9 year old…
Jodie Rodriguez says
Erin, I think you could totally adapt it for older children. Instead of letters you could use spelling words and have him spell the word that he “harvests”. Or use vocabulary words and have him define the word or use it in a sentence. Have fun!
Kay@TheGOMamas says
My daughter has kids who would love an activity like this. Anything that makes learning fun it a hit in my book
Jodie Rodriguez says
I so agree Kay!
Jill says
I love those wooden letters and what a fun game 🙂
Sarah says
Love combining the tag game with letter learning! Sure to be a hit with my son!
Samantha @ Stir the Wonder says
What a fun game! I’ll have to try it with my son!
Cerys from Rainy Day Mum says
I love the blocks and this is so much fun – I’m going to give it a go next week I wonder if I’ll be allowed to play as well.
Natasha says
Now this we are going to do today. I love games that makes them move while learning and I love playing tag. So I’m going to play too.
The Preschool Toolbox says
This is a great gross motor game to extend the book! We haven’t read this one yet *adding to library list! Nice post for the harvest theme!!
Nicolette Roux says
awesome! fresh outside air and learning fun!
Theresa says
I love this activity. Our preschoolers would love to harvest letters and the added element of tag keeps it exciting.
Danielle says
This looks like SO much fun! This is perfect for my little guy. He would definitely enjoy this!
Devany says
Ohhhhh, I love this! What a fun way to learn letters outside in the fall!
Jodie Rodriguez says
Thanks Devany. We had a lot of fun with it!
Amanda says
This is SO GREAT! The act of “Harvesting letters” gets kids moving, learning, and having fun.