This is a pretty classic letter of the week idea, but my son and I were both so excited about how cute the alligator turned out to be. The foam teeth and googly eyes really helped turn the A into an alligator. Don’t miss the additional activity for more ideas about how to incorporate letters into playtime.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of construction paper (different colors), 2 googly eyes, some white foam or paper will do, glue, scissor, and markers.
- Draw a large upper case A on one piece of construction paper. I added two triangles on one side of the A for eyes.
- Give your child the A and have them color it to their liking. We have been talking about inside vs outside a lot this week so I shouted out “Inside the A” and “Outside the A” and my son obliged, it made it a little silly but fun.
- While they color cut out some triangles for alligator teeth.
- Cut out the A
- Glue it
on the 2nd piece of paper.
- Glue the eyes (you can see where we had glue all over above the eye, no biggie, just wipe it)
- Add the googly eyes
- Use dots of glue for the teeth
- Add the teeth. Let dry.
Books!
“SNIP SNAP! What’s That?” by Mara Bergman was a great library find. The book is about an alligator who sneaks into an apartment filled with three very terrified children. I love that the story changes when the children decide to stop being afraid and to fight back. My son really enjoyed the book, he liked the use of onomatopoeia throughout and the exaggerated illustrations of the alligator. After we read it at lunch he asked for it to be his nap time book, and again for it at bedtime. That is a good review from a 2-year-old!
“Alligator Alphabet” by Stella Blackstone and Stephanie Bauer. I was so excited to find this book because just this week my son started pointing out lower case letters in the text. This book is a beautifully illustrated book with each letter represented on its own page. Pretty standard right? Wrong, although the text below the illustration had both upper and lower case letters, the main illustration is only the lower case letter. This is perfect for children like my son who are just starting to learn their lowercase letters.
“Alligator Baby” by Robert Munsch is a ridiculous story that will have your child laughing and screaming “No no that’s not a people baby!” The story is about a family who brings home the wrong baby, over and over again. Finally, the older sister takes things into her own hands and saves the day. Kids love this story, it’s not the best bedtime book though, my son was very very hard to settle down after laughing so hard at this one.Additional Activity
Cookie Sheet Letter Board
Looks simple, doesn’t it? It is. All I did was buy $1 magnetic letters at Wal-mart and grabbed a cookie sheet from my pantry. My son has been playing with this on and off for days. Here are some of the fun things we’ve done.
- All the letters on the sheet- take turns finding a letter and taking it off
- All letter off the sheet, taking turns finding a letter and putting it on
- Grouping the letters by color
- Counting the letters as we put each on, and taking them off again.
Of course, we labeled each letter as we did this. It is definitely simple but it was also a lot of fun. What letter of the week activities do you do with your kids? Comment below or share on my Facebook page!
If you teach preschool or preschool at home, you will love my Little School eBook of preschool activities.
Oh I do love this one!
I love all your letter of the day ideas. One idea I had was to do these and eventually make a book of the alphabet of them, like in a binder. Thank you for your blog!
Jennifer in Austin, TX
I think you can help. I hope.
How in the world do you get your googley eyes to stay?? Ours just fall off!
Thanks!
Annette, what kind of glue did you use? I find googly eyes hate glue stick glue, I only use white glue with them. I use ( well my son) uses a tone too, takes longer to dry but they stay put.
I hope that helps!
Love the craft!
We do something similar with magnetic letters, except ours are in a metal cookie tin (some kind of Danish cookie that my mom used to be obsessed with.) Anyhow, my children use the lid to stick the letters on (ours are kind of a mini size letter) and then just pop the lid back on the tin when they’re done. Cheap and fun! 🙂
~ Sarah
We just love the cookie sheet and magnets in our house. We’ve been doing it for a couple weeks and my 2 year old still loves it! We call the cookie sheet his “letter board” and even let him keep it in his room. Thanks for some suggestions on games we can play together with it. Also I can’t wait to do this craft with Nathan, he is always asking to ake an alligator!
Your alligator is so cute!
What great ideas! I am working on Book Month in June–want to contribute something?
Nicole – I would love to!
I love the alligator A! In my 1st grade world alligators are used to teach greater than & less than 🙂
We borrowed ‘Alligator Baby’ from the library a couple of weeks ago, and my daughter wants to read it all the time! She’ll be sad when we have to bring it back!
Absolutely adorable 🙂
I just love the alligator A! My daughter, almost two, started making on this afternoon. Once she wakes from her nap and it is dry we will add the teeth and eyes. So much fun!
Thanks for the Alligator idea – Come see how ours turned out!
http://ouralphabetadventure.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post.html
Thanks for the craft idea and book suggestions. Here's what we did with it:
http://surprisemeacham.blogspot.com/2009/08/letter-of-week-is-for-alligator.html
I’ve had your website bookmarked for probably 6 months. I now have my head on straight after my second child’s birth and was finally able to do a craft (the alligator) with my 2.5-year-old! We had a blast and can’t wait to do more!! Thanks for sharing all your terrific ideas!
My toddler son LOVED doing this! He is so proud of his A and keeps pointing at it. Thanks for such a great idea.
We used this today for a craft. Thank You so much for sharing! I hope it’s ok. I am going to share this on our blog… Credit is ALWAYS given. We love your blog.. it’s a go-to.. for sure :o)
My kids look forward to their letter of the week project each week. We have taken a little break over the summer, so I know they’ll be excited to pull out the construction paper and googly eyes again in a few weeks! I’m actually writing today to let you know I linked to your blog today:
http://veganinthekitchen.com/2010/08/06/elmos-happy-healthy-snack-chart-for-kids/
Thank You!
I will used this in my summer presentation for the younger tykes – alligator songs & riddles & etc. library programs.
Alligators connect to my debut picture book,
She Sang Promise:s The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader.
Many many thanks.
Jan.
http://www.bookseedstudio.wordpress.com (pls see my alligator page in progress)
I am SO frustrated!!! I’m dying to use your crafts with my preschoolers at school but i cannot for the life of me figure out how to print out the page with the directions! I keep getting just the “categories” list on the right of your page!! in particular, i was trying to print out the “a for alligator” project but i’d love to use other craft projects as well. how do i print them out so i can take the directions to school with me???
thanks! and a great website!!!
nanci
I love your Alligator idea! I just started with letter of the week for my 3.5 year old, and was so happy to include it (http://gingerbreadmum.blogspot.com/2012/02/attacking-alphabet.html). Thank you for all your lovely ideas! Keep it up, wonderful mum!
Adora
Singapore
Loved this craft! We just did it today. I found it on Totally Tots. Thanks for sharing! http://thefrugalreport.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-is-for-alligator-craft.html
So glad you loved it!
Thank you for the ideas! I just started teaching my 20 month old the alphabet and this was the first craft we did! Photos of our finished project are on my blog (with a link back to yours!) thanks 🙂