This week I have been exploring Australian animals with my students as we combine the topics of weather and animal habitats. While this is not the only topic we’ve been exploring the children are enjoying learning about animals like emus, kangaroos, sugar gliders, and koalas. To insert some of that theme into our literacy small group and free choice activities. This printable letter recognition game was a perfect fit – even one of my students who is not interested in letters asked to play and stayed engaged with every single letter. I was thrilled to follow their lead and keep playing. I didn’t intend on making this a post, but after teachers who follow me on Instagram asked for the printables I through this post together.
To Prep The Printable letter recognition game
Gather your materials. You will need the printables available free here, scissors, a laminator, tape, and a bucket or box.Print out the koala and the eucalyptus leaves. Laminate and cut out.
Cut out a mouth on the koala and tape it to a bucket or box.
You are ready to play!
In small group what worked the best about this activity was how easy it was to differentiate. With some of my PreK students, I placed a small number of leaves for the koala and called out the letter I wanted them to feed it, and with others, it was a free for all with me calling out any letter of the alphabet, still others needed more of a challenge and I called out a letter sound for them to match up with a letter and then feed to the koala. On the free printable I have blank leaves for you to use however you wish. You can laminate and write numbers, shapes, even sight words.
What really made the difference for my students was getting silly while playing. Simply adding “Num, num, num,” after they fed the koala a letter brought tons of giggles. I was reminded that when children are having fun while learning they are actually learning more effectively. So get silly!
Download the free printables here.
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