Preschool Letter P

Welcome to our Preschool Letter P learning week! We worked through three days of letter formation, phonics, early reading, handwriting, number activities, and fine motor practice. Our number focus for the week was number 8.

As always, this was not simply a collection of worksheets. It was a little record of the things Filip and I tried together, the activities he enjoyed most, and the moments that showed me how much his confidence was growing.

Throughout this post, you can use the resource links to find the complete activity sets. Many of the photographs are also linked to the individual free printable shown in the picture.

Day 1: Preschool Letter P Formation, Sounds, and Number 8

Letter P Formation Activities

We began in the same familiar way as our previous preschool letter weeks. Filip first finger-traced the uppercase and lowercase P on the letter formation mat. He then followed the lines again with a whiteboard marker.

Beginning with large movements gave him time to notice the straight and curved parts of each letter before working on smaller handwriting. The arrows also helped him practice forming each letter in the correct direction.

(TpT) Alphabet Play Dough Mats (K-R link here)

For a change from play dough, we used colored spiral pasta to build the letters. The small pieces made Filip slow down and place each one carefully along the letter path. It was a simple way to combine letter formation with fine motor practice.

I followed pasta-dyeing directions from WikiHow and Happy Hooligans.

Letter P Recognition and Handwriting

Next, Filip completed an uppercase and lowercase letter identification page from Dawn DeLorenzo’s Gumball Dot It! activity. He searched through the gumballs and marked the letter P in both forms.

This gave him practice recognizing that uppercase P and lowercase p look different but represent the same letter and sound.

Gumball Dot It! Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

After that, we moved to smaller-scale handwriting with the write-and-wipe letter P cards. These were a big hit with my little man! If he went outside the lines, we simply wiped the card clean and tried again.

There was no frustration over making a mistake, and I remember wondering why I had not used them from the beginning. Being able to start over so easily helped Filip practice with much more confidence.

(TpT) Alphabet Write and Wipe Cards

Letter Sound Activities

Our next activity focused on (TpT) Beginning Sounds (K-R link here). Filip said the name of each picture, listened for its first sound, found the matching alphabet eraser, and placed it on the picture.

He REALLY enjoyed using the little letters for this activity! The erasers turned the page into hands-on phonics practice and encouraged him to connect each spoken sound with its written letter. We found our alphabet erasers at Officeworks in Australia.

We also played our Sound Hound game. Filip listened carefully for the P sound in each word and sorted the pictures according to where he heard it. This Preschool Letter P activity helped him listen beyond the first sound and notice the sound within a whole word.

(TpT) Sound Hound Letter Sound Game

Number 8 Activities

Once our letter work was finished, we moved on to number 8. Instead of play dough, Filip used colorful Lego-style erasers to form the numeral on the number mat.

(TpT) Number Play Dough Mats (K-R link here)

He even made an AB pattern as he filled the ten frame. I loved that this extra bit of number and pattern work came from his own idea. Along with recognizing and forming 8, he was counting the objects and noticing how eight can be represented in a ten frame.

We finished Day 1 with a cut-and-paste number page. Filip matched the numeral, number word, and picture representation, giving him another way to connect several forms of number 8.

(TpT) Free Numbers Cut and Paste 1–10

Day 2: CVC Words, Letter P Handwriting, and Number Sense

Beginning P CVC Word Work

We started Day 2 with CVC word slider cards. By this point, Filip could sound out and blend single words really well. I was hoping to introduce simple sentences by the time we reached letter T, but I was happy to follow his pace and see how we went.

The slider cards allowed him to change one sound at a time and hear how the word changed. This was a helpful bridge between recognizing individual letter sounds and blending a complete word.

(TpT) CVC Word Slider Cards (K-R link here)

Next, we put together some CVC puzzles. Filip matched the beginning, middle, and ending sounds to build each word, then used the picture as a way to check that the completed word made sense.

(TpT) CVC Puzzles

For our next Preschool Letter P activity, we used phoneme segmentation cards to build CVC words. Filip said each word slowly, listened for its three sounds, and placed the letters in the corresponding sound boxes.

(TpT) CVC Phoneme Segmentation Cards (K-R link here)

Once the letters were in place, he carefully checked each one to make sure it was in the correct spot. I loved watching him begin to take responsibility for checking his own work instead of immediately looking to me for the answer.

Letter P Reading and Handwriting

We then brought out a new page from my Introducing the Alphabet unit. Filip spotted the CVC words and jumped straight into sounding out the letters and reading them. Yay for eagerness to read!

After reading, he finger-traced the large letter at the top. He then traced the uppercase and lowercase P on the handwriting lines. Working from large finger movements to smaller pencil movements reinforced the same formation pattern in two different ways.

(TpT) Introducing the Alphabet Worksheets

More Number 8 Practice

Moving into the number section of our day, Filip dotted his way through the number 8 maze. He needed to visually recognize each 8 among the other numerals while controlling the dot marker and following the correct path.

(TpT) Number Mazes 1–20 (K-R link here).

To finish Day 2, he completed a number concepts page. This brought together numeral formation, counting, and different representations of 8 on one page.

(TpT) Number Tracing and Number Concepts (K-R link here)

Day 3: Word Families, Number 8, and a Letter P Craft

CVC Word Work and the -ip Word Family

On Day 3, we began with a CVC word work page. Filip cut out the pieces, sounded out the words, and matched each one to the correct picture. The cutting and gluing added fine motor practice while the word work reinforced segmenting and blending.

(TpT) CVC Word Families Cut and Paste Worksheets (K-R link here)

Next, Filip matched pictures to CVC words to build our -ip word family flip-flap booklet. Turning the flaps allowed him to read a new word and then find the picture that matched it.

This was a lovely confidence-building Preschool Letter P activity because he could use the repeated -ip pattern while concentrating on the changing beginning sound.

(TpT) CVC Word Family Flip-Flap Booklets (K-R link here)

Number 8 Flip Book

We also made a number 8 flip book. Filip counted the objects on each page and stamped each picture as he counted. This encouraged careful one-to-one counting because every object needed one stamp.

(TpT) Number Flip Books 1–10

When he read the finished booklet, he added a stamp beneath each word. That little idea helped him track the print and practice one-to-one correspondence as he moved from word to word.

Finishing with a Letter P Craft

We finished our week with a letter craft. Filip transformed uppercase P into a pig and lowercase p into a piano. Cutting, positioning, and gluing the pieces gave him more fine motor practice while connecting each letter shape to a familiar P word. “P” is for pig, and “p” is for piano!

(TpT) Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Craft Templates

Looking back, some of the simplest materials made this week especially memorable. The spiral pasta, alphabet erasers, and Lego-style erasers encouraged Filip to handle the letters and number rather than only look at them on a page.

I also loved seeing his growing confidence with CVC words. He was eager to sound them out, check his letter placement, and read his own little booklets. Our Preschool Letter P week gave us a happy mix of phonics, handwriting, number sense, creativity, and those small learning moments I wanted to remember.

My Online Stores

I have included links throughout this post so you can easily find the complete resources in my Kinder Resources and Teachers Pay Teachers stores.

To check out more resources, click either store link below.

Happy Teaching!

View Other Preschool Letters