Wednesday 14 September 2011

Letter A: a is for alligator: roundup

A is for alligator is a tricky one - many of the alphabet craft post use this idea originally from no time for flash cards (I think) to make alligator jaws from the capital letter A.  But, whilst it is a great alphabet craft I can't help thinking 1) how many children think this is a crocodile, which definitely doesn't begin with a and 2) it is a capital letter A and since the majority of letters in any writing that my children come across are lowercase is it not weird to start with capital letters?  However, since I have been deliberately finding free preschool printables for use with B now that he is at Nursery during the mornings I came across this post on one of my all time favourite blogs for printables lawteedah.  This has encouraged me to put an alligator theme in as part of our letter A resources.  Stand by for a long post but bear with me and maybe you might find just the thing you have been looking for.

The original lawteedah post has

  • "A" magnet page
  • alligator lacing card
  • match upper and lower case coloured alligator puzzles
  • 6 piece puzzle
  • colouring page
along with some tracing and cutting pages.

First School has some alligator printables


  • progressive puzzle (shown above)
  • colouring pages
  • handwriting tracers
  • paper bag puppet craft
Colouring WS has some more colouring pages

Enchanted Learning has an alligator card to make

Colouring and letter tracers (both upper and lower case) from Soft Schools

Colour-by-number by Ziggity Zoom

THE master list of alligator crafts is on Artist Helping Children - loads of links to other sites

ESL teachers has this idea for a feed the alligator throwing activity for gross motor skills and co-ordination

Printactivities.com has an alligator maze - for my bigger kids really so they can feel involved

Here is a printable for older children which has a quiz and wordsearch as well as a letter scramble game (answers included)

Saturday 3 September 2011

Letter P:p is for pirate:Talk like a Pirate Day September 19th 2011


Yes here in the UK we really do have a day called "Talk Like a Pirate Day"!  Of course you can have your own pirate themed day any day of the year but in preparation I have been trawling round the blogosphere and the web in general to round up all things pirate for us to use.  I know there are more here than we will get round to (no change there, but too many is better than not enough IMHO) but even if we only pass on good resources to others out there then it is still  time well spent.  This is a very long post so bear with me - there should be something for all kinds of activities for all ages of kids.  All that is missing are pirate crafts.

One of the first things I have prepared is clip cards from the pirate set of printables which I downloaded a while ago - unfortunately I didn't make a note of where I got it from (I know, I know) so I cannot credit the appropriate source; if you do know who it is please leave a comment :) However here is the link to the file sharing page to download your own set.


Also included in this set are

  • 9 picture cards suitable for memory/matching games
  • p is for pirate tracer page
  • spot the odd one out in the row activity
  • puzzles (2 and 3 pieces)
  • pirate ship size sequencing
  • pre-writing line tracer page
Edited to say I found the source after all - it is from Preschool Printables like the Pirate Boy and Girl sets below- the original post is here.


    2Teachingmommies also has a pirate unit (click here) which has:

    • Roll and Graph  
    • Pp is for Pirate
    • Beginning Writing/Cutting Practice
    • Shadow Match
    • Size Sequencing
    • Patterns
    • Letter Match
    • Number Order Puzzle 
    • Spelling Page
    • Counting Clip Cards
    • Which is Different?
    • Memory Verse
    • Pirate Hat Craft
    Homeschool Creations has a pirate lapbook but this is based on the book  On a Pirate Ship by Sarah Courtauld which is difficult to get hold of in the UK - I don't know about worldwide.  
    Some of the activities can still be used without the book.  There is a colour the parrot minibook to print, ship sequencing (again!), a bags of gold minibook for printing, pirate word and picture cards which could be used for memory games, puppet cutouts for making lolly stick puppets and a find the treasure game which could be mounted in a file folder for a stand alone game.
















    Pirate Boy printables from preschool printables

    • number tracers (words and numerals) for numbers 1-10
    • Name and address card
    • alphabet tracer (whole alphabet on one page)
    • clip cards for numbers 1-12
    • pirate colours
    • spot the odd one out
    • pirate counting picture
    • puzzles (3 and 4 pieces)
    • line tracers
    •  p is for pirate tracer
    Preschool Printables also have a pirate girls set for those with preschoolers of the pink variety and this includes:
    • number tracers 1-10
    • a-z tracer (one sheet)
    • odd one out
    • sequencing
    • info card
    • pre-writing lines tracer

    play 2 learn printables has a pirate section here for older kids really but good if you do calendar time as part of your routine. This section includes:

    • build a pirate game
    • tic tac toe
    • days of the week
    • calendar headers
    • calendar pieces
    • maths worksheet/mat (addition)
    Sparkle box has a whole load of pirate themed resources for download including:
    • A brilliant set of printable resources for use in a Pirate Ship role-play area.  The download includes a set of labels with pictures, a blank treasure map template, a Jolly Roger flag (A4 size) and a group of printable ‘coins’ that can be sorted by the shapes or numbers
    • scroll  and parchment page borders for writing
    • role play masks in both colour and black and white
    • wanted poster frames in both black and white
    • topic words
    • alphabet on pirate ships
    • numbers 0-30 on pirates
    • numbers 0-20 on ships
    • pirate number posters
    • numbers 0-15 on treasure chests
    Also from sparklebox but in a different area here:
      • display banner
      • 15 cm x 15 cm display cards
      • A4 page borders
      • how to make a pirate hat
      • pirate bingo
      • dominoes
      • alliteration posters
      • pirate chest initial sound matching activity
      • pirate playdough mats
      • table signs and group signs
      • editable label template
      • editable bingo
      • editable target sheets
      • editable treasure chests
      There you have it - lots of links to inspire for little and big kids on a pirate theme.  There are of course other sources out there so if you know of any good (free) ones please leave a comment and please check the master list of resources by theme (top of the page) for any new additions in the future!