Letter Aa

When we introduce the letter Aa, we focus on astronauts.  The kids love this unit.  We prepare five literacy centers and five math centers.  I have included our reading centers here.  There are lots of astronaut and outer space printables at my TPT store.

Alphabet Clip Cards

 These are our astronaut clip cards.  We cut the cards  apart and then ring them in the corner.  Then the kids use regular clothes pins to match capital to capital letters.  They really enjoy using the clothes pins, plus it is great fine motor practice.

Fine Motor Tracing Mats

 These tracing mats are fabulous pre-writing practice.  I don't cut these cards apart, I just ring the entire mats together.  The kids love using the dry erase markers to trace the lines.

Alphabet Sequence Cards

 These are small cards with magnets on the back.  Each child at the center gets their own bag of letters as well as a cookie sheet.  This maintains individual work spaces.  Manipulating these cards helps students practice letter recognition and alphabet sequencing.  When we begin the alphabet, I include these alphabet strips at the center so students will have a guide. 

Letter Recognition Mats

My kids loved these mats.  We put capital and lowercase letters on sticky dots and then put them on plastic tiles.  The children sorted the tiles to match capital and lowercase Aa's.  The extra letters were lost in space and just floated on the black part of the mat.  

Capital Alphabet Mat

 These alphabet mats are one of my kids favorite centers.  Each child gets a mat, a tub of magnets, and a cookie sheet.  I used a paint pen to write the letters on these button magnets.  Children match the letters capital to capital.