Don’t go breaking my heart! This Valentine’s broken heart puzzle is a great Valentine’s Day learning activity. It is one of our favorite letter matching activities for preschool and can be used in a variety of ways!
Valentine’s Day activities for preschoolers offer tons of fun, themed ways to talk about important concepts, like friendship, family, and love.
Alphabet Matching Activity for Preschoolers
I heart Valentine’s Day. Simply because it gives us the opportunity to pause and share our love and affection for the wonderful friends and family in our lives.
I know, I know… it is a highly commercialized holiday and that can be off-putting for a number of reasons. But the message behind Valentine’s Day is one that I will always get behind – sharing your love for one other.
I love infusing this message of kindness with my preschoolers throughout the month of February. We enjoy learning activities that promote kindness and being thoughtful while still infusing the ABCs and 123s. I have a whole set of free lesson plans based around a Valentine’s Day theme!
That’s why this Valentine’s alphabet work for preschoolers is the perfect way to practice learning the letters of the alphabet in a fun and playful way.
This letter recognition activity reinforces visually recognizing the letters of the alphabet. Since having a mastery of letter names can make learning letter sounds easier, this alphabet learning activity is really beneficial.
Plus, researchers and educators agree that beginning readers experience more success in reading when they can rapidly and accurately recall letter names before they learn basic phonics. So bring on the letter matching activities for preschool!
Easy Letter Recognition Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners
Here are some simple and easy-to-prepare letter recognition activities to help you get started.
- Sing the ABC Song – Sing the alphabet song with your children everyday and invite your little one to join in. If you have alphabet cards at home, point out each letter as you sing.
- Alphabet Books – Read alphabet books to your child. Check out this list of fifty excellent alphabet books that No Time For Flash Cards has complied.
- Alphabet Cards – Display alphabet cards and say the alphabet each day, pointing to the letters as you say them.
- Write the Alphabet – Provide lots of opportunities to explore writing letters. Explore writing through sensory play and various writing materials. Try markers, crayons, pencils, finger paints, or writing in various materials such as hair gel, shaving cream, paint, sand, or salt.
- Create Alphabet Crafts – Make an animal out of the letter starting with the same animal sound. For example, make a duck out of the letter d, or a moose out of letter m. Totally Tots has great ideas here. Red Ted has a fun collection of handprint letter ideas that are such fun!
- Build the Alphabet – Offer buttons, pom poms, cotton balls, small rocks, bolts, unifix cubes, or another set of counters to place on a letter print out. Pre-Kinders has a wonderful list of letter building activities.
- Alphabet in the Environment – Point out letters in everyday print, such as product boxes, store signs, and billboards. Check out my post here on the importance of environmental print.
Frequently Asked Questions About Teaching the Alphabet
I teach them together. However, I intentionally focus more on lower case letters because that’s what we see most in reading and writing. It is important for children to have exposure to both types of letters. This helps solidify that each letter has a capital and lowercase partner.
There is plenty of research to suggest that we should first teach letters whose sounds can easily be pronounced, as well as those that are most commonly used. Letters like Mm, Ss, Pp, Tt, and Cc are great introductory letters to begin with.
Check out the phonics lesson plans in our store that systematically introduce letters in a fun and engaging way through research-based practices.
Preschoolers love puzzles, so incorporating seasonal letter matching puzzles is always a win and a fun way to practice matching letters for toddlers! Search and find alphabet pages are lots of fun and can be used with paint dabbers, markers, highlighters, or even stickers.
Or take a ride on the alphabet train using magnet letters! Don’t forget an alphabet sensory bin full of upper and lower case matching activities for preschool.
Valentine’s Alphabet Broken Heart Puzzle Matching
This hands on alphabet puzzle is a great way to practice letter names and doubles as a fine motor activity for preschoolers. Plus it’s a personalized activity that can be adapted to fit your preschooler no matter where they are on their alphabet journey.
Materials
- construction paper
- scissors
- marker
- tape (we used washi tape)
The Set Up
To make the Valentine’s learning activity, I cut out the paper hearts by hand and then cut them in half using different zigzag lines. This specific day we were working on the letters Gg and Hh, so those were the only two letters that we worked with. I wrote both upper and lowercase letters for them to match.
However, feel free to make the letters that work for your students! It’s a great activity no matter how far along they are in learning the alphabet.
For example, you could use the letters of a child’s name. For a more advanced puzzle, try breaking up simple words into syllables. Or to make it an alphabet activity for kindergarten, you could even cut the hearts into thirds and invite the children to draw an object that corresponds to the letter sound.
Lay out the heart halves, tape, and a blank piece of paper for each child.
Valentine’s Day Letter Matching Hearts
Invite the children to look over the puzzles and share what they notice. They may comment that some hearts have lowercase letters and some have capital letters, or that there are only two letters Gg and Hh on the hearts. After some discussion, invite the children to begin finding the uppercase and lowercase letter matches. Once found, they will use tape to connect the hearts together on the sheet of paper.
This activity turned out to be a little more difficult than I’d anticipated! To the preschoolers, all of heart halves looked very similar. I helped them find matches by rearranging the halves and placing the matches within an easy distance of each other. Don’t be afraid to adapt your letter matching activities for preschool as you go along!
This activity was born because my son has a new obsession with taping things, so we used that to our advantage. We used washi tape which comes in lots of colors and designs. Also, it comes in rolls, it requires the user to tear or cut the tape.
So as an added bonus, my preschoolers were developing fine motor skills with the peeling, tearing, and taping. Not to mention they were super pumped to use this colorful tape for a learning activity!
Sometimes getting the tape started took a little adult help, but it wasn’t long before they learned to scrape where the tape met the roll and had it figured out on their own!
After a little practice, the students started finding the letter matches more quickly and with less hesitation. The letters Hh and Gg got a major brain workout today and the kids enjoyed using this “fancy” tape to match the puzzles together.
Alphabet Books for Preschool
Alphabet books are like magic! They reinforce letter names and give lots of repetition and practice in a fun way. They are a staple in every home and classroom! Here are some of my favorites.
Valentine's Broken Heart Letter Matching
Preschoolers match upper and lower case letters to form heart puzzles.
Materials
- construction paper
- scissors
- marker
- tape (we used washi tape)
Instructions
1. Pre-cut the hearts by hand and cut them in half using zigzag lines. Feel free to use the letters that work best for your students.
2. Layout all the hearts in mixed-up order on the table and invite the children to share what they notice.
3. Invite the children to begin finding the uppercase and lowercase letter matches. Once found, they will use tape to connect the hearts together.
4. Invite the preschoolers to peel and tear off the tape to connect the heart puzzle matches.
Notes
This activity can be challenging because all the cut hearts looked very similar to the preschoolers. I helped them find matches and then placed the heart halves within "easy distance" of the preschooler to make making matches a little easier.
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I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to two precious and long-awaited littles. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with young children. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!
