Free Weather themed Word Tracing Printables

Next up in our guest blogger series is Sarah from 5 Ways to Teach Kids that They Can Make a Difference, High 5 Today Campaign, and 12 Outdoor Learning Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers. Today she is sharing an awesome set of Free printable Weather themed Word Tracing worksheets!

The weather during the spring months can be very fickle. One day it will seem like the warmth is here to stay, only to have the temperatures dramatically drop and snowflakes falling on the next! Eventually, the sun starts to shine more and the precipitation will finally change to rain, with some lightning and thunderstorms occurring too!

While the changes in weather become second nature to adults, it is a novelty for toddlers. My toddlers absolutely love to talk about the weather. Each day after breakfast, we look out the window to see what the weather is like. I will open our slider door so we can feel the wind, rain, or warmth from the sun, while I also give a very simple explanation of the science behind the weather.

Since we have been doing a variety of activities to work on letter recognition, like these snowflake crowns during the winter, I thought I could use the weather as another great opportunity to work on their pre-reading and pre-writing skills.

I decided to create this printable set of some of the most common weather types that we witness during the spring. My 3-year-old twin girls love to name and trace the letters while also discussing what the weather is like. The weather graphic on the printable helps them to "read" each word.

These printables are free and would make a great addition to a weather unit for preschoolers. The 6 spring weather types included in this printable pack are: cloudy, lightning, raining, sunny, windy, and thunder. I hope your children enjoy them as much as mine!

Click here to Download your Free Weather themed Word Tracing Sheets!

Hi there! I’m Sarah, a mother of 3-year-old twin girls and a 2-year-old boy, and a young widow since August of 2013. I work at home as a virtual assistant and owner of Star Thrower Virtual Services. I also blog at Me Plus 3 Today, where my goal is to provide inspiration today because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Topics on the blog include parenting, kid’s crafts and activities, widowhood, and ideas for making a difference. I’d be honored to have you visit my blog, or follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

For more handwriting practice that includes reading and tracing CVC words, see our CVC Word & Picture Tracing Cards.

Felt Butterfly Craft

My next guest blogger is Monique from Living Life and Learning. Monique is a homeschooling mom of 3, blogging about educational activities for kids. Some of my favorite posts are her (free printable) Dinosaur Counting Cards and her Felt Storyboards for Mo Willems' Pigeon Books.

Felt Butterfly Craft

Spring is in the air, so it's a great time to learn about butterflies. Felt crafts are a great way to get little ones imaginations flowing and it's such a quiet activity. It's perfect for when you need to focus on something like teaching an older child or making a phone call. This felt craft is super easy to put together and if you have any felt lying around the house then you can do it in no time at all. All you need is felt and a pair of scissors and you can make your own set.

Felt Butterfly Craft Supplies:

- purple: wings
- black: body and antennae
- red, yellow, pink and blue: different shapes
- scissors

For this craft I didn't draw out a template but just cut free form. For the wings I folded the purple sheet of felt and cut out the wings so that it would look symmetrical. The black felt was used for the body, head and antennae. I used various colors and cut out diamonds, lines, circles and zig zag patterns. I'm not super creative but I was going for simple and this felt craft is definitely easy to put together.



My felt crafts are stored in ziploc bags so she can take them out on her own to play with them. My daughter was being silly and enjoyed throwing the felt pieces onto a pile on the butterfly. She was very proud of her work and asked me to take pictures of it along with herself as well. My daughter had a blast playing with the felt flowers craft and felt pizza that I've made as well.

Meet Monique:

Monique is a biology graduate, web designer and homeschooling mother to 3, you can find her blogging about homeschooling, activities and printables at Living Life and Learning. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram.

Playful Alphabet Garden with Free Printable

I am very excited to announce my next super talented guest blogger: Sue from One Time Through. She has many amazing parenting posts and great educational ideas. Also be sure to check out her (free printable) Parent & Child Connection Coupons! 

Playful Alphabet Garden

Spring is arriving late to my neighbourhood this year, so I decided to get a head start and create a playful alphabet garden for my 3 year old son to plant inside. I'm Sue and you can usually find me blogging about hands-on learning activities for young kids over at One Time Through.

Because I'm a teacher, I often try to find a way to turn fun activities into learning opportunities and I thought this idea would be perfect to share with the Totschooling readers!

I found the idea for a playful alphabet garden at my local early years drop in centre where they often share creative and fun ways to introduce young children to their letters.

My son didn't have enough time to really play with the "garden" that day - so I decided to make my own at home for him to use.

What is the Playful Alphabet Garden?

The alphabet garden is a simple plastic tub filled with play sand, a pair of child- sized garden gloves, some small gardening tools, a few plastic plant pots, a small watering can, and of course, the popsicle stick alphabet "flowers."

The flowers (as well as a few bugs and butterflies for fun!) each have a capital letter of the alphabet on them. I created a printable PDF A to Z set of these that you can download for free {HERE}.

How to Prepare the Garden

You Will Need:

- the Playful Alphabet Garden printable (1 or 2 copies)
- 26+ popsicle sticks
- play sand and a plastic tub/container
- small garden gloves, planting tools, watering can, and plastic plant pots

To set up the garden activity, print off your alphabet flowers and cut them out. I decided to print out 2 copies so that I would have lots of letter doubles. I also laminated mine so that they would last longer. Tape each flower/bug to the top of a popsicle stick.

I also found some small plastic flower pots that I wrote some garden-related words on with a permanent marker, like: water, dirt, rocks, flower, and my son's name (a big favourite right now!)

Garden Play

When my son first played with the bin, I didn't give him any instructions except to put on his gardening gloves. His first instinct was to scoop the sand and fill the pots, and dig, dig, dig! And that was okay with me.

After some exploratory play, I showed him how he could "plant" the flower letters in each pot to match the words on the pots. We did this activity for a little while together - focusing on his name and then one of the plant pot words that he was interested in (incidentally the one that also started with the first letter of his name).

Eventually, his focus moved back to scooping and digging, but the letter flowers now became a part of his pretend play.

I got this gardening activity out several times this week, and each time my son seemed to get something different out of it. The first day was about exploring, the second day was more about pretending to plant flowers, and the third time was more about matching the letters to the words.

In all cases, he was having fun, learning to recognize the letters, and by talking with me as he played, incidentally learning letter sounds. All perfect practice activities for an early writer!

Meet Sue:

Sue is an Elementary School Teacher currently on leave to be at home with her preschooler son. She shares ideas for connecting and learning with kids through meaningful, play-based activities that nurture curiosity and creativity, as well as positive parenting tips.





If you enjoyed this activity you will LOVE our Alphabet Games Bundle, a set of 15 creative, hands-on ABC games!

Free Alphabet Butterfly Puzzles

Puzzles are a great hands-on way for kids to learn. They are a favorite at our house! My daughters love the challenge of solving puzzles and putting pieces together to create a picture. With Spring here I thought it would be fun to practice our alphabet and letter cases using this set of colorful, free printable Butterfly Puzzles.

This set includes 26 different butterflies with an uppercase letter and lowercase letter on each wing.

Since all the butterflies are unique, it is a great way for kids to check their own work to make sure the butterflies and letters match up. Great for independent and quiet time!

Click here to download your Free Alphabet Butterfly Puzzles!

Where do Vegetables Grow? Gardening Craft with Free Printable

Learn about different types of vegetables and where they grow, in this next guest post from Counting Bees Printable Math Game, Pick Up Sticks Sight Word Games, and 8 Ice Cream Games for Learning.

Learning Where Vegetables Grow

Not all vegetables grow on plants the way fruits do. Some grow under the ground. Some vegetables are the stems or flowers of a plant.

We recently used a burlap gardening board I created to explore just where the vegetables we eat grow on a plant. The vegetables we sorted were made of felt and displayed on card stock cards. I thought you might not have the time to make them from scratch. Instead, I have made you a set of printable photos of the felt vegetables you can use. They are displayed in the pictures below.

Under the Ground Vegetables

After sorting through the pile of plants, the plants that grow vegetables under the ground were placed on the gardening board. The leafy green section of the plant was placed in the green area of the board. The section of the card displaying the underground vegetable was placed in the brown area.

Once you have the vegetables in place, you might want to take a moment to talk about the words under and over. You can have your children point to the parts of the plant that are under the ground and over the ground. It will give your children a quick lesson on positional words.

On the Ground Vegetables

There are three vegetables that grow on the ground or the green area of the gardening board. They don’t grow on a plant hanging down to the ground. The base of the plant is cut off where it sits on the ground. Those vegetables are the stem or flower of the plant. The broccoli is a flower. The asparagus is a stem. The celery maybe called a stem for this activity lesson, but it is petiole. A petiole is a small stalk attaching the leaf blade of a plant to the stem.

Above the Ground Vegetables

The last area to place vegetables in is the blue area. While they don’t grow while floating in the air, they don’t grow on the ground either. If you feel there needs to be a plant displayed on your gardening board, you can cut one out of felt.(We just displayed them above the ground.) Each of the above ground vegetables has its own unique plant. I decided to avoid having the vegetables grow from the wrong type of plant by not including one.

You may look at the above ground vegetables and wonder if they are all really vegetables. Well, technically some of them are fruits. The peas are really seeds. The tomatoes are fruits. Beans are a fruit. Corn is considered by some to be a fruit and others to be a vegetable. For this activity the food that grows above ground was called a vegetable, but it would be fine for you to share what they are instead.

When you have all the vegetables displayed on the gardening board, you can quickly review the positional words over, on, and below.

How I Made the Gardening Board

The gardening board is made of three colors of burlap glued to a large piece of cardboard. The blue and brown areas were made larger than the green area. The above the ground and underground areas are bigger than the ground in real life so I made them that way on the board.

You actually don't need to make a gardening board with burlap the way I did. Painting the three sections onto cardboard or gluing blue, green and brown construction paper on a piece of cardboard would be fine too.

Click here to Download the Free Vegetable Learning Cards

Meet Deirdre:

Deirdre is the author of JDaniel4’s Mom where she shares other learning activities, printables, crafts, and food creations. She loves growing and learning beside her son. You can find her on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.

Free Spring Alphabet Puzzle

Today is officially the first day of Spring and I am bringing you this adorable Spring themed alphabet puzzle for children to practice letter recognition and alphabet sequencing.

I have included both upper and lowercase letters for children of different skill levels. Just print, laminate if you wish, and cut the puzzle along the lines. This puzzle makes a great busy bag or quiet time activity!

Click here to Download your FREE Spring ABC Puzzle

You might also enjoy the following related posts:

Spring Counting Math Pack

Spring is here and there are so many fun ways to practice counting. This FREE printable Spring counting pack features raindrops, ladybug spots, flower petals, butterflies and caterpillars!

This FREE Spring themed math pack includes 5 counting activities:

• Counting Raindrops (1-10)
• Counting Ladybug Spots (1-10)
• Counting Flower Petals (1-10)
• Counting Caterpillar segments (1-10)
• Adding Butterflies (1+1, 2+2, 1+2)

These activities can be used in several different ways depending on your child's skill level. After counting the items, your child can either write the correct number, cut & paste the correct number, or place a number tile/number puzzle piece in the answer box.

Click here to Download your FREE Spring Counting Pack

For more Spring learning printable activities, see the following posts:

Ladybug Counting Mat

Spring ABC Sequence Puzzle

Butterfly Alphabet Matching Puzzles

Playful Alphabet Garden

Spring Do-a-Dot Printables

Weather Word Tracing

If you enjoyed this activity you might also like our Alphabet Games Bundle, a set of 15 creative, hands-on ABC games!

Name Recognition Flower Garden

Learning how to recognize and spell their name is an important skill for preschoolers. This flower garden puzzle is a fun name activity, just in time for Spring!

This FREE printable name activity includes a flower planter and several different sizes of flowers. 

Write the child's name on the planter. Then, depending on how many letters are in the name, choose one size of flowers and write a letter on each flower. The child then "plants" each flower to create their name. 

This can be done as a cut & paste activity, or laminated and made into a reusable puzzle.
 

Click here to Download your FREE Flower Garden Name Activity

For more name recognition activities, see the following posts:

Ice Cream Name Recognition

School Bus Name Puzzle

DIY Photo Name Puzzle

If you enjoyed this activity you might also like our Alphabet Games Bundle, a set of 15 creative, hands-on ABC games!

Butterfly Alphabet Sound Puzzles

Spring is in the air and what a better way to practice letter sounds than these cute little butterfly puzzles! Put all 26 butterflies together by matching the letters with the picture that begins with each letter sound.

This FREE printable puzzle includes 26 butterflies, one for each letter of the alphabet. Just print, laminate if you wish, and cut out along the lines. Great for busy bags or Spring literacy centers.

Click here to Download your FREE Butterfly Alphabet Puzzle

For more Spring learning activities, see all of our seasonal posts!

Four Seasons Sorting Activity Free Printable

The changing weather is a great time to talk to preschoolers about the four seasons. Use this free printable sorting activity to learn about the many things that make each season unique. 

This FREE printable Seasons activity features four trees, one for each season, and 16 image cards. Sort the cards underneath the correct tree depending on which season the image represents.

• Spring: chick, tulip, butterfly, boy in the rain
• Summer: ice cream, watermelon, sand castle, boy in pool
• Fall: leaves, pumpkin, scarecrow, girl raking leaves
• Winter: snowman, snowflake, cup of cocoa, boy in the snow

You can either laminate this activity or have your child cut and paste the images.

Click here to Download your FREE Seasons Sorting Activity

If you enjoyed this activity you will LOVE our Science Pack for Preschool and Kindergarten!

Spring Color by Sight Word

Practice sight words with these FREE printable Spring themed coloring pages, featuring a caterpillar, umbrellas and a flower garden. Great for preschool and kindergarten! Includes blank sheets that can be customized.

These FREE Color by Sight Word sheets are perfect for the Spring season. Includes 3 different designs, each page featuring 4 sight words that children have to color according to the legend. There are 16 different pre-primer dolch sight words in total, plus blank pages of each design to customize with the sight words your child is currently learning.

Click the links below to Download each design:

Caterpillar Color by Sight Word

Umbrellas Color by Sight Word

Flower Garden Color by Sight Word

For more Spring activities and printables, see our Seasonal category.

For more sight word coloring, see our Fall Color by Sight Word

Caterpillar Color Matching & Sorting for Toddlers

Color matching and sorting, with toys and objects from around your house, is a fun activity for toddlers to learn color recognition. This FREE caterpillar color activity is a perfect preschool activity for Spring, or to go along with the Eric Carle classic "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Toddlers will love placing colored objects on the caterpillar in this FREE Caterpillar color matching and sorting activity. Any small colored objects can be used, such as:

• pom poms
• large buttons
• dot stickers
• foam shapes
• any small toys you have on hand

The file comes in 2 pages that you can laminate and tape together to make one large caterpillar. The caterpillar consists of 7 colors, including primary and secondary colors.

Related Post: Very Hungry Caterpillar Do-a-Dot Pack

Click Here to Download your FREE Caterpillar Color Activity

If you liked this activity you will LOVE our Toddler Matching Pack!

For more color activities, see the following posts:

Weather Pack for Preschool and Kindergarten

This FREE Weather Pack is perfect for a weather theme in preschool or kindergarten. Learn about different weather types, weather words and clothing, while practicing fine motor skills, math concepts and more!

There are 7 activities included in this pack. Some pages are in color and some are in black/white.

• Pre-writing tracing lines
• Weather picture & word tracing
• Patterns
• Weather & Clothing Match
• Letter R hunt
• Weather Graphing w/ paper die
• Dressing up bears for Hot & Cold weather

This Weather Pack is FREE for all Totschooling subscribers!

(If you are already a subscriber, you can find this pack on the Subscriber's Page)

What can I expect as a Subscriber?:

-You will receive access to free printables that are not available for download on the website. This includes holiday and seasonal packs, as well as other themed activity packs.

-You will get access to our collection of Board Book Printable Activities and Nursery Rhymes Sequencing Printables.

-You will receive 1-2 emails per week with new posts, freebies, sales and additions to the site.

-Your information will never be shared with anybody else.

How do I get my Weather Pack after subscribing?:

-After confirming your email address, you will receive a Welcome Email which provides the link to the subscriber's page. This subscriber's page is where you can download the Nursery Rhymes as well as ALL other subscriber freebies.

-Please check your email thoroughly for this email including spam folder, promotions folders, etc. If you still do not see it, please email me at totschooling@gmail.com and I will be happy to send you the link.