Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds for Preschoolers
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This FREE Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds activity is fun, engaging, and perfect to help your preschoolers work on recognizing and manipulating the beginning sounds in words. It is important that they practice hearing different sounds a lot, which will prepare them for blending sounds and reading in the future.
This hands-on activity will allow your children to practice important beginning sound recognition, letter identification, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and phonic skills.
Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds
The best way to teach the alphabet is by using fun hands-on activities, that keep children engaged and interested. This Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds activity is easy to use and will also help your preschoolers develop their one-to-one correspondence and fine motor skills when they choose an envelope with a picture and match it to the correct mailbox.
Low-Prep Valentine’s Literacy Activity
This Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds activity is super easy to prepare. You will need the following materials:
- FREE Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds printable, found at the end of this post.
- Printer.
- White cardstock.
- Scissors.
- Laminator or Dry-erase pockets.
- Small basket.
How to Set It Up
Print the mailbox cards and envelopes on white cardstock. Cut them apart and laminate them for multiple uses. Place them on a tray or basket, and invite your preschoolers to name some of the pictures, identify what letter represents the beginning sound, and find the correct mailbox to match it with.
I like to make several sets and place them in different centers, to entice the children and give them the opportunity to use this activity in different ways.
It is better to introduce the activity to your preschoolers and explain to them how to use it before you put it in your centers.
You can even use the envelopes during circle time to introduce what is in the picture that appears in each of them and review the beginning sound and what letter represents it before you let them adventure on their own.
How to Use the Activity
Give the child the mailbox cards and envelopes. The child needs to name the pictures in the envelope, say the beginning sound of it and the letters that represent it, and match it with the correct mailbox.
If you think a particular child is not ready to do the full activity, just use a few, depending on which letters and sounds each child need to work on. It is important that they all feel successful and not frustrated, to build up their self-esteem and confidence.
You can also prepare a set of envelopes apart, and write the lowercase letters that represent the beginning sound in the corner of each of them. That will help less advanced students to recognize which letter is represented on the envelope.
This Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds activity can be used in many ways such as:
- Literacy center option.
- Quite Area activity.
- Writing center option.
- Take-home activity.
- Reading center option.
- Small group activity.
I like to give my preschoolers options. That is why many times I combine an activity with different related ones, to set up multiple small group activities that run at the same time. It will depend on your particular group.
If you are interested in setting up multiple groups, check out my other Valentine’s activities below. They all come with FREE printables ready for you.
- Valentine’s Animals Letter Match.
- Valentine’s Bears Counting Mats.
- Valentine’s Beginning Sounds Clip Cards.
- Valentine’s Day Bingo.
- Valentine’s Day Memory Game.
- Valentine’s Day Number Puzzles.
- Valentine’s Day Tracing Activities.
- Valentine’s Day Word Wall Cards.
Extension Activities
To extend the activity you can:
- Have the child trace or copy the letters.
- Match each letter with magnetic, foam, or wooden letters.
- Find other words that start with the same sound.
Valentine’s Storybooks
It is always important to add some quality storybooks to enhance any preschool theme, and to read them to your students during circle time and/or story time. Here are some of my favorite Valentine’s books that could be nicely paired with this beginning sounds activity.
Pin It for Later
If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it for later, pin it to your Literacy or Valentine’s Day Pinterest board for later.
I hope your preschoolers enjoy this free Valentine’s Letters Beginning Sounds activity, and help you with your lesson planning for February. Don’t forget to grab your FREE pack, by clicking on the link below, and typing your information for an immediate download.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.D. Please let me know if this activity worked for you, or if you think I need to add or replace something. My goal is to help you in any way I can.
