St. Patrick's Day Seek and Find Activities for Numbers 1-20 and Letters A-Z

Living near Savannah, St. Patrick's Day is a big deal.  Schools close down, the big parade is down town, the fountain is turned green and thousands of people flock to the city for the festivities.  We opt to stay home and avoid the craziness of the St. Patrick's Day activities.  We do our own things at home, one of the more fun things for the little kids are these seek and find mats.  They love hunting for each letter and number as they practice recognizing and matching.

These mats work great for handwriting practice.  Students can find the letter on their card and trace it on their mat.  If these pages are laminated or placed in page protectors, then they will be a reusable center to use with dry eraser marker.

You can also pair these mats with mini erasers.  My oldest daughter loved anything to do with the mini erasers because they were fun shapes and very colorful.  Students can simply find the number on their card and cover it with the mini eraser.  This center can also be used over and over with students who need extra practice with letter or number recognition.

Students can also color the number from their card on their mat.  They can use crayons, markers, colored pencils or anything else that can be used for coloring.

These mats and cards can also make a fun write the room activity.  The teacher will place the cards around the room and the students will color in or trace each letter on their mat as they locate them.  This activity combines the necessary skills of letter recognition and handwriting with gross motor movement to get students engaging with the material in multiple ways.

All of my kids have loved using dot markers for any activity I would let them.  Students can use dot markers to mark each letter as they locate it on their page.

This is my three year old's favorite activity to do with these mats.  She loves picking a magnetic letter and finding its match on her letter mat!  The first time I introduced this activity to her, she wanted to do it over and over.  

These mats are the perfect way to incorporate St. Patrick's Day in your room.  These mats are versatile, with many ways to complete, meaning you can find the activities your students engage with the most.  

St. Patrick's Day Seek and Find Mats

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Why Use Prewriting Tracing Lines?

There are many steps to learning to write.  The need for fine motor development of the hand muscles, proper grip of writing utensils, a general idea of how writing from top to bottom, left to right.  Many times children are given a pencil and expected to just know what they are doing, or to be able to easily trace or copy.  This just is not true.  Being taught how to write is just like teaching one how to ride a bike.  None one is able to hope on a bike and just go, they have to learn to balance and petal in order to even start riding, just like a child needs to develop their hand muscles before they can even begin to properly form letters.  

One way you can show yourself how difficult handwriting can be is to try and write something using your foot.  This was an exercise I was given at a teacher training I did my very first year.  We were told to try and write our names with our feet.  By doing so, we were to understand what it feels like for a child to try learning to write with their hands.  They are wobbly, don't always have the best grip and the letters just don't look right in the end.  With practice, and further hand development they will get there!  Once they have their fine motor muscles build up they can work with beginning writing.  That is where I introduce prewriting lines.

What Are Prewriting Lines?

You might be wondering what are prewriting lines and how are prewriting lines beneficial to a child learning to write.  Prewriting lines are lines that students can trace to practice common handwriting patterns.  Tracing can be done with writing utensils or their finger.   By practicing the line patterns over and over, students create a muscle memory of forming lines that will later be beneficial when learning to form letters in both print and cursive.

How Can I Use Prewriting Lines?

I would recommend laminating tracing pages or placing them inside page protectors to create a write and wipe activity.  You can also place the pages inside a binder for easy storage or a quick to put together writing center.   Prewriting line cards make a great writing center activity, fine motor center activity, morning tub or morning basket activity, as well as a small group activity.  

The prewriting lines pictured are from an alphabet animal tracing line packet.  Students will trace the lines from the capital letter to the lowercase letter.  Students get practice with letter recognition and line tracing with these pages.  The fun animal theme also allows students to see an animal that begins with each respective letter.

ALPHABET ANIMALS PREWRITING LINES

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Pumpkin Themed Preschool Activities

This post will explore a variety of activities that are perfect for fall in a preschool classroom!  These activities will specifically focus on pumpkins.  You will find math, alphabet, crafts, centers, and more on this page.  

PUMPKPIN CRAFT

Who can do fall without a pumpkin craft??  There are a variety of ways to make pumpkins using paper bags, paper plates, and many other materials.  This one focuses on an easy to prep craft that simply uses a free pumpkin template to create a torn paper pumpkin craft.  You can read about the directions and access the freebie from this blog post: Pumpkin Craft - A Torn Paper Preschool Craft

Pumpkin Activity Bundles

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