Three ways to zoom into preschool letter z is with games, crafts and stories. Many years’ ago when my children were preschoolers I taught them with this method. It has not failed. Preschoolers love games, they love crafts, and they love stories.
I have all 4 sons’ and they were high energy. That is the great part of having boys. Teaching with textbooks and worksheets was not ideal, but I made it work in our homeschool preschool with a few worksheets and our textbooks were library books. Keeping a routine, short lessons and games was my homeschool preschool program.
Short Preschool Lessons
Keeping short lessons helps to keep them focused. As I tell my kids, you can learn something in an hour, or you can spend all day learning the same thing. In my opinion it is much better to keep lessons for preschoolers at 30 min. They have short attention spans, and at that age more playtime is important.
Be focused and prepared with what you will teach them each week. I printed off a bunch of letter of the week lesson plans when my children were preschoolers. They were free (which I loved), and very helpful in teaching the important parts of the alphabet.
Teach Preschoolers to Recognize the Letter
First, teach your preschool letter of the week with recognition. Read a book that is centered around that letter. Second, have your preschooler write the letter Z, or trace over a Z you have written. Third do a craft that makes the letter z.
Another way to teach recognition is a mealtime. Buy a placemat that has the alphabet on it, and see if they can find the letter, talk about it with them, and use mealtime as a learning time.
Next, say a lot of words that start with the letter. Everyday say “zoo” “zebra” and “zipper”. See if they start to recognized the sound the letter z makes. Watch YouTube videos that reinforce the letter Z. Teaching the letter is seeing it, saying it, writing it, and hearing it. In the future, this will help your homeschool preschooler with reading. Therefore, the beginning of phonics starts in hearing the letter.
Learning Preschool Letter Z with Games
Games move teaching anything to the next level. Use games for all of the alphabet. Homeschool preschool is the time to not worry about curriculum, but begin to focus on the basics. As long as they show progress it doesn’t need to be fast or slow, but at their own pace.
Games to try with Letter Z:
Matching game with alphabet tiles. Line them up with the letter facing up. This will help them to see what the letter is and how to match it.
Another game to try is a letter “Z” race. You will need 3 toy cars, tape and 5 cut out paper “Z”s. Have your preschooler race the cars on the letter z.
Finally, get a stack of Alphabet cards and have them sort through them to find the letter z. When they do they get a goldfish cracker, or some kind of treat.
Another way to do this is to hide the letter z card and have them find it on a scavenger hunt. All of these ideas are fun ways to teach the letter Z to your homeschool preschooler.
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