Welcome to Letter H! We are having fun with Hippos this week! Hope you enjoy!

(Scroll down for the large floor number cards!)

Letter H Memory Verse:
Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise” Ephesians 6:2
Click here to download the H verse puzzles

For our verses and accompanying games/stories we use the following books:
ABC Memory Verses & My ABC Bible Verses

Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and put up the letter H on our Alphabet Tree! You can download my small alphabet letters here.

Song time:
Hide ‘Em in Your Heart Vol 1
Hide ‘Em In Your Heart Songs – Vol 2

Letter H Tracing: I laminate this and use with Expo Dry Erase Markers for pre-writing practice skills.

Hh Do-A-Dot Page: We use Do-a-Dot Art Markers with this!

Hippo Scissor Skills! A new one, I’ve been wanting to do more scissor skills, so decided to add an activity for my alphabet packs! Just print and cut along the lines. I’ll be doing these for future letters and changing up the patterns as well.

Hippo Cut & Paste: A new activity we are trying, cut out the hippo and glue onto construction paper, or better yet, paint a background!

Letter Poking Page: I found this fun idea on Activity Mom. Instead of tracing, we are going to use a toothpick, or we have these cute Oversized Push Pins, to poke holes through the paper in the shape of the letter. Print on regular paper for easier poking, and do this one on carpet 🙂 Another idea would be to hole punch along the lines of the letter as well. Both work on motor skills!

Hippo Size Sorting! I’m doing a variation on the usual size sorting game (small, medium, large), this time I’ll have her put them in order small to big or big to small. Afterwards, we discuss which one is biggest, smallest, medium.

Hippo Magnet Card: I use this with a cookie sheet and these pom-pom magnets I made from pom-poms and self-sticky magnets from the craft isle in Wal-mart. I also use these magnets from Amazon: Power Magnets, 0.75 inch Diameter, Assorted Colors

Hippo Scavenger Hunt: fill the box with things that start with H! Some ideas: hat, horse, hand, hotdog (fake food), heart, hammer.

Hippo Puzzle: Easy, just cut along the guidelines and you have a 6 piece puzzle!

Hippo Pattern Activity: Use the pieces to practice patterning skills, a pre-math skill.

Hippo Number Practice: I laminate then hole punch the upper left corner, and bind with a keyring. Then we use dry-erase to practice writing our numbers.

Hippo Lacing Card: I make sure to laminate this one for durability, then punch with a hole punch every inch or so for lacing practice. Teach them patterns to do with this as well, like up from the bottom each time, or in-out-in-out…click here for an illustration:

Hippo Graphing: I laminate this and then have them either color in the dots with dry-erase marker, or put bingo markers on it.

Hippo Large Floor Numbers: I made these large floor numbers so that we can play a hopscotch type game. I call out a number and she jumps to it! You could also have them put the cards in numerical order.

Hippo Coloring page: color or use Do-a-Dot Art Markers, Pip-Squeaks Markers, you could also paint, watercolor etc.

Hippo Color Word Match: Match the correct color hippo to the word on the card. Because we’re in Prek, I colored the words to help her, but you could print page 1 in gray-scale for more of a challenge! I may still cut these little guys out then cut them in half in as many different ways as I can think of to make tiny color matching puzzles as well.

Hippo Number Cards: I use these with either mini-clothes pins, colored paper clips, or put a hole in them and have her attach chain links to them. Whatever you use, just have them put on the correct amount for the number on the card. These are also good for putting in numerical order.

Hippo Building: These activities are great for spatial relations, patterns, logical reasoning, geometric concepts, & computation skills. Click here to see CREATIVE COLOR CUBES ACTIVITY CARDS!

Hippo Letter Matching: This is a fun letter matching activity, that practices both upper and lowercase letters recognition! If you’re looking for more challenge, use the uppercase card with the lowercase letter disks or visa versa! (The download includes upper and lowercase letter disks and activity cards) Click here to see the process of making the letters.

(Please note, the original idea for this game came from Tot School and Carisa’s blog.)

Capital/Lowercase H sorting: Simple, just sort the uppercase and lowercase letters.

Finger Tracing Paint Bag: This is simple and fun, I filled a bag with tempura paint, you could also use cheap shaving cream. Then I’ll tape it to her desk for her to practice writing her H and h in using her finger. You could also skip the bag and put shaving cream on your counter if you’re feeling brave ;o) After we do the letters we do numbers, shapes, and whatever else we can think of! (Sorry, I used the picture from Letter D because I’m lazy!)

Color Cubes: I found a new use for our Large Alphabet Lacing Cards! First we traced the letters with her finger, then we used our 1″ building blocks to make the letter D and d. She also picked 2 colors of blocks and did a pattern as she made her letters! We also use them for lacing practice, but this was a new variation since I’ve been making the shaped lacing cards too! Click here for more fun with Creative Color Cube Activity Cards.

Foam Letter Builders: I cut the shapes from foam and let her use them to make the letters. You could also use my Magnetic Letter Builders as well!

Hippo Letter Bead Lacing! I’ll put an index card in this box with the word ‘hippo’ so she knows the order of the letters. I got my lacing beads from Lakeshore Learning but these from Amazon look more fun to me: Bead Bazaar Lacing Kits – Alphabet Lacing Kit (maybe Christmas!)

Kumon ABCs Uppercase Write & Wipe Flash Cards: Always turns into this…

Letter Collage Worksheets: The download includes letters A-Z as well as a collage idea sheet. We use the collage items as objects to decorate our letters for an alphabet book. We also color, paint, and stamp them. Since we use both upper and lowercase, I have provided both for you! Click here to download the Letter Collages:

Letter Hunt: I created some Letter Hunt worksheets that you can download.

Tangram Picture Card from Lakeshore Learning:

Family Fun Night!
Make Hamburgers and watch “Horton Hears a Who
” or “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (The cartoon version!)

Extra: See my Money Saving Tips for help with printing, laminating and storage questions and tips!

26 Comments

  1. Waouh!…It's very interesting and funny for the children… thanks to share this, it's a good help for me… I've just a question: when do you begin to teach the "letter programm" with your child ? because my daughter will be 3 in april and I ask me it's time to start!(sorry for my poor english vocabulary)

    Muriel
  2. Muriel, I started doing the prek activities with my daughter when she was about 3.5 almost. Really it was a little young, but her siblings were doing school and she wanted to do her own stuff too.Otherwise I'd probably wait until 4 then you can move into Kindergarten at 5. You could try tot trays from http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com too and see if that's more your level?

    Anonymous
  3. I just want to thank you for all the work you do here and the links you provide.Oh, I was at the library today and had to giggle when I seen they had put out a lot of books about Hippos. Your site must be bigger than even you think. lol

  4. I love your ideas and have been printing and laminating the letters of the alphabet. I’m not sure if you can fix it, but not all of the letters are highlighted and so I can’t print them out (letters Ee, Ff, Hh) to name a few.

    Joann Kiefer-Warren

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