Letter C Activities for Early Preschoolers

Last week I taught a letter-themed preschool co-op focusing on the Letter C and the Number 3.  Our group has four high-energy boys and one girl, and they all turned three a few months ago!  So we, of course, filled the morning with lots of exciting letter-C activities, and now I'm sharing them with you!

Gathering Activity:  Construction Site

A sensory activity with bulldozers, excavators, and other construction tools!

Circle Time:  Letter C Introduction  with Carpet Scraps cut in a c-shape.  Name review, A & B review, News Share (each child gets a moment to talk).  Put the C's in groups of 3.

Cave Activity.  Build a cave with couch pillows and blankets.  Go on a Bear Hunt to find the cave (review Bear starts with B).  Pretend Play: Bears in a Cave.  Find 3 fish to eat.

C Maze.  My six-year old daughter really wanted to help plan the day.  She volunteered to make a maze for the kids that they could complete by tracing the C's down the correct path.  She also added in some distracting A's.  She's getting pretty good with Word!  You can have her maze too by clicking HERE.

"Cooking" Activity.  Go outside and "cook" with real tools, pans, bowls, flour, and water.  I also added a bit of baking soda and vinegar.  It was awesome!

Egg-carton Caterpillar Craft.  This is a classic for a reason...kids love it!  To prepare, cut the egg cartons in half, cut pipe cleaners in eight pieces, pre-pop tiny holes for the pipe cleaners with s small screw, put out some paint, and grab some self-adhesive wiggly eyes.  Getting the pipe-cleaners in the little holes is excellent fine muscle exercise, as is painting and sticking eyes on the caterpillars!

C Snack:  Carrots and Cookies!  My cookies were whole wheat oatmeal raisin yumminess!  

Story & Song:  The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  This fabulous book reviews days of the week and the life cycle of butterflies.  You can see it in the link below, and Netflix currently has a 6-minute "movie" where a narrator reads the book and a few aspects are animated (like the caterpillar crawling).  {picture below is Amazon affiliate link}

The Itsy Bitsy Caterpillar (Tune: Itsy Bitsy Spider)

The itsy bitsy caterpillar climbed up on a leaf.

He spun a cocoon, and then he went to sleep.

While he was sleeping he dreamed that he could fly.

When he awoke, he was a butterfly!

I know that technically butterflies make a chrysalis, not a cocoon, but I'll explain that when the kids are older!

Carrot Cutting:  Hole punch THESE CARROTS and tie some long green yarn to them.  Show your children the carrots that just grew way too much!  Encourage the kiddos to cut the yarn, but don't get stressed if they cut the carrots too!  This is another fun way to strengthen those finger muscles...and both "carrot" and "cut" start with "c!"

Circle Starts With C:  And we have a huge circle-shaped parachute!  Parachute Play is tons of fun!  

Circle Time: Review & Wrap Up

Free Play:  We've scheduled 20-30 minutes of free play for the kids to practice their amazing get-along skills at the end of each day!

Supplies:

Construction Sensory Bin

C-shaped carpet scraps

3 hidden fish

C mazes

Cooking Tools & Water

Carrots & Cookies

Cutting Carrots

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Egg Cartons, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, paint

Parachute

Some convenient Amazon affiiliate links are below...you never pay more for clicking over to Amazon through my links, but I get a small commission for referring you.  See more details here!

I may share at any of these parties!