This week’s Playful Preschool Series theme is hats.
This literacy activity is a fun way to play with hats and stuffed animals. Best of all your preschoolers will be learning about beginning sounds!
Begining Sound Preschool Literacy Activity
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Why We Chose This Language Activity
There are so many great books about hats. Make sure to check out our list below. My boys love to read about hats, play with hats and make hats.
We are also working on letter sounds so we wanted to incorporate that into our play.
We had a hard time choosing just one hat literacy activity to share with you!
Setting Up and Playing
Materials Needed: paper bowls, markers and a variety of stuffed animals or dolls
1. Gather a collection of stuffed animals or dolls. Six is a good number for this activity.
2. You will need a paper bowl for each animal that you have collected. Turn your paper bowls upside down and decorate them with markers.
3. On each hat you will write the letter that represents the beginning sound of each animal. You can decide if you want to use the general name of the animals (ie dog, bear, tiger) or if your animal has a given name (ie our cow’s name is Moo-Bell) you can use that beginning sound/letter. Include the kids in this step. It’s a great language skill building activity!
It is time to play! The goal is to match each letter hat to the correct stuffed toy.
Have your kids pick a hat and say the sound the letter represents. For example, if they select the hat with “D” on it, they would say /d/. Then ask, “Which animal starts with the sound /d/?”
They then put the hat on the correct animal.
Take the hats off and play again.
My kids ended up making multiple hats for each animal!
Here are some fun books to read aloud about hats that preschoolers love!
Caps for Sale by Slobodkina is a classic. A peddler with a tower of hats on his head falls asleep under a tree. When he awakes, he discovers the monkeys have taken his hats. How will he get them back?
I Want My Hat Back! by Klassen is a funny tale of a bear who asks all the animals he meets where his hat is. Who has his hat? And, what will become of the hat holder?
Hooray for Hat by Won is another fun read. Elephant is grumpy until he opens his door to discover a hat waiting for him. He sets off to show Zebra his hat which sets a parade in motion.
Lots of preschool literacy fun!
RELATED POSTS
Beginning Sound Fossil Matching
Keep reading. Visit the links below for more great hat ideas from the #playfulpreschool team!
Upper and Lower Case Hat Match by Rainy Day Mum
Quick and Easy AT Word Family Hat Activity by The Educators’ Spin On It
Fine-Motor Birthday Hat for Preschoolers by Life Over C’s
Preschool Hat Improv Game by Capri + 3
Guess The Hat? Sight Word and Colour Recognition by Learning 2 Walk
Hat Matching Printable Cards by Powerful Mothering
Samantha @ Stir the Wonder says
This is so creative! Thanks for linking up at the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop! We hope you join us again next week!
susen @Dabbling Momma says
fun, cute activity! Great way to involve stuffed animals into learning!
Carrie Groneman says
What a TERRIFIC learning activity! ‘Caps For Sale’ was always a favorite read and this is a perfect way to reinforce visually what is being read. Well done! Stopping by from Family Free For All. Carrie, A Mother’s Shadow
Liz says
I love this idea. So motivating for the kids. Thanks!
Cerys says
What a fun activity – I’m going to give this a go with names of people in her preschool class tomorrow.
Beth T says
I love this! Thanks Jodie, what a great and cute idea! I’m definitely going to use this in our homeschool balancing act. It will be a great way to keep my preschooler engaged and busy during her brother’s “school time.”
Jodie Rodriguez says
Beth, I’m so glad you will be able to use the idea. We had a lot of fun with it!
Natasha says
This is a fun activity! We have hats for our animals to try this with.
Jodie Rodriguez says
I love when I have most of things already on hand to do an activity!
Amanda says
I love this and wish we had bowls, I mean hats for our bears. Adding them to our grocery list because this is a must try activity!
Jodie Rodriguez says
Have your little one add them to the list Amanda!