It’s time for more alphabet fun! This week I’m sharing letter O activities for preschoolers.
Are you following along with my Letter of the Week with a 3-Year Old series? My little guy and I are having a lot of fun doing hands-on learning as he learns his letters and sounds. Check out letter O!
(Update: I published this post years ago when my children were young. Now that I have more time, I’ve created a done-for-you alphabet curriculum perfect for preschool!)
Letter O Activities
Since my Three knows letter O backward and forward, we focused on fine motor activities. Here he’s writing the letter O with his finger in oatmeal.
My older kids were doing my beginning handwriting pages by this time, but this little guy just isn’t ready.
It’s best to strengthen those fingers and hands before insisting on pencil and paper writing for a child who doesn’t even have the correct pencil grasp yet.
Making O’s out of play dough was a fantastic activity for strengthening his hands, and we were busy quite a while. While my Three loves play dough, he does not like making play dough snakes. It’s just too tough for him. But with a lot of patience and demonstration, I succeeded in getting him to try a few, or at least to finish the snakes that I began.
After he tired of it he pinched my snakes together to make O’s.
I really like this fine motor octopus printable from A Little Pinch of Perfect. At first my Three tried painting with the Q-tips, but I showed him how to dot each of the octopus’s suction cups one at a time. This demanded a lot of control from those little fingers!
This fine motor activity doubled as a math one. It’s based on an estimation activity from Teach Preschool. I drew O’s on the paper, and my Three guessed how many little O’s (Cheerios) would fit in each one. He checked his guess by counting the Cheerios as he added them. He needed some help as the numbers got bigger.
This adorable owl craft gave even more fine motor practice. I cut out the pieces, my Three used our two circle punches for the parts of the eye, and he glued everything down. Then he used a piece of celery to make the owl’s feathers. Get a full tutorial at Crafty Morning.
After I cut out the flesh and my Six squeezed out (and drank) the juice, I left half an orange out to dry. Later, my Three dipped it in paint and made simple prints.
As I stated earlier, my Three didn’t need any work learning to recognize O. But it’s always good to review the letters we’ve learned before. I wrote them on post-it notes, stuck them to our patio door, and gave him a beach ball.
What a hit!
He spent a long time identifying the letters as he hit them with the beach ball. Later, his older brother (age five) was willing to hit the letter that my Three called out. Lots of great review with some gross motor thrown in. Bonus!
This week on the blog I shared these beginning sound clip cards. We went through these together. My Three needed a lot of help and really isn’t able to do this on his own yet. You can learn more about them and get the printable in this post.
We also did this brilliantly simple name search activity from Mom Inspired Life. I just wrote his name over and over, and he found it and highlighted with a Do-a-Dot marker. Be sure to hop over and get your free printable!
We didn’t do any special indoor sensory activity this week because it’s summer. And O is for outside, right? He had plenty of unstructured sensory play this week. 🙂
Looking for a done-for-you alphabet curriculum?
Alphabet Curriculum for Preschool
$36.00
Our curriculum includes lessons for teaching both upper and lowercase letter names and sounds. You’ll get three lessons per letter, built-in review, simple handwriting practice, rhyming, syllable counting, phonemic awareness, and a whole lot more!
More links for you
We didn’t need any letter recognition activities this week, but your child might. Here are links you might find useful.
- Little Letter O Book (songs and rhymes)
- My Letter O Book (with photos)
- More letter O crafts
- More ways to make the letter O
- Outdoor math activities
See the whole series …
You’ll love our alphabet curriculum?
Alphabet Curriculum for Preschool
$36.00
Our curriculum includes lessons for teaching both upper and lowercase letter names and sounds. You’ll get three lessons per letter, built-in review, simple handwriting practice, rhyming, syllable counting, phonemic awareness, and a whole lot more!
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Katie Pinch
I am so glad the octopus q-tip painting went well. Thanks so much for sharing our printable! 🙂
Anna Geiger
You’re welcome, Katie – it’s a fun one!
Danielle
Thanks for including my name search printable! Have a great week!
Anna Geiger
You’re welcome, Danielle – he really loved it!