This is an ever growing place for all things letter E. We used the letter E as inspiration in instances that made sense, but if there wasn’t something that fit naturally, we simply substituted it with something else we wanted to learn about. If you’d like to read an overview of the structure and creation of this home preschool series you can find that here. This post will be jumping right into our resources for this week.
BOOK LIST
- Elmer by David McKee
- The Saggy Baggy Elephant by Kathryn Jackson
- Edwina the Emu by Sheena Knowles
- Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles^
- Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
- The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper^
- Elmore by Holly Hobbie
- Eat Your Superpowers!: How Colorful Foods Keep You Healthy and Strong by Toni Buzzeo^
- Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
(I’ve only listed the books that we’ve read and enjoyed. But within each list you might also notice this arrow ^. I’ve placed that beside the ones that I think make a great addition to a home children’s library based on their exceptional rereadability or reference material.)
ART STUDY
- Eric Carle: His books are such a classic introduction to art for children: the vibrant colors, the abundant white space. We watched the Mister Rogers episode where he meets and paints with Eric Carle and revisited some of the books he illustrated. (Some of Our Favorites Are: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Ten Little Rubber Ducks, and The Tiny Seed.) We made Eric Carle inspired collages and did this counting sheet together.
ART PROJECTS
- “E is for Eyes” Worksheet with Wiggle Craft Eyes (Free download for that below.)
- Emotions Book—You can find the instructions for making your own emotions book here. And once you’ve gone through the effort of taking the photos you could turn the photos into a matching game as well!
- Make Listening Eggs— Similar to Montessori sound canisters, you can fill plastic Easter eggs with assorted small items, tape the seal shut and shake to hear the differences in the sound. This can be presented as a guessing game if you fill the eggs ahead of the time or they can help think of things to fill them with. If you make two of each filler, it can be an exceptional listening practice to match two of the same ones together by listening. (With little ones and little things, it goes without saying, but use caution and supervision. There are a lot of usable materials that are edible and less of a choking hazard: rice, cereal, dried fruit, dry pasta, puffs, etc.)
- Eric Carle Inspired Collage (Here is a link to Eric Carle’s website where he explains his particular process.)
LANGUAGE + LITERACY
- Edelweiss
- Evergreen by The Okee Dokee Brothers
- Poem: Why English is Hard to Learn by Unknown Author
- Poem: The Ecchoing Green by William Blake
MATHEMATICS + BASIC SKILLS
- Number Focus: 5 + 6— We practiced this by creating stacks of Duplo either 5 or 6 high.
- Color Sorting— This was a fun one to make! I’ve been working on some color sorting worksheets for awhile, but they always felt like they were lacking something. I decided to have the boys help make them and they turned out beautiful. It’s made me eager to involve them in making more of the worksheets for their learning binders. You’ll find the printable pages below to create your own. I had the boys do several paintings over a few days of just one color per page. Then I cut out a strip of the painting and glued it onto their worksheet. You could cut up the rest of the painting into different shapes for things to sort by color. We used stickers on white cardstock and laminated them. There are so many different types of loose parts that could also be offered for sorting: we’ve done fruit/vegetable magnets, large wooden beads, Pom Poms, Duplo, cars, etc. )
SPIRITUAL GROWTH + SCRIPTURE STUDY
- What do you think about God? What do you think God is like? Do you have any questions about God? (Perhaps you offer answers or perhaps you simply affirm their questions and pondering spirit.)
- “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.”—PSALM 33:5
WORDS TO INSPIRE CREATIVITY + PLAY
I share this list because I believe in using the resources that you have. Some preschool plans have made me feel like I need to buy very specific resources, which often isn’t necessary. There are so many perfect materials that already exist in our homes for preschool play and creativity and learning. These words are to serve as inspiration for your own art projects or imaginative play.
- Eyes
- Emotions
- Earth
- Eggs
- Ears
- Envelope
- Exercise
- Echo
- Elephant
- Excited
- Exploring
- Excavator
- Elevator
- Eraser
Below is a one sheet of the activities we used for the week. I prefer the option of printing things out for the week and having them all in one place (worksheets, poems, plans, etc.). You’ll also find the “E” is for Eyes page we did, a blank letter E to fill in if you’d prefer something different, and a large tracing page that can be used with playdough, dry erase markers, or other loose parts. You’ll also find a simple printout of the poems for the week. And you can find the A-Z memory verse collection here.
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