The week leading up to Thanksgiving is the perfect time to sneak in a little lesson about healthy food choices. One of my favorite books to introduce fruits and vegetables is Lois Ehlert’s Eating the Alphabet.
In this book, Ehlert uses vibrant illustrations to portray many different fruits and vegetables that begin with each letter of the alphabet. I designed a few activities that work well as companion activities before, during and after reading this book. They can also stand alone as fun activities and centers about fruits and vegetables for preschool and kindergarten.
Here are 63 word and picture cards that correspond with the fruits and vegetables introduced in the book, Eating the Alphabet. You can use these for participation cards, vocabulary, word walls, matching activities and to teach ABC order.
Emmett and I created a scavenger hunt with the Melissa and Doug Fruits and Vegetables. We also added a pumpkin from our fall décor! Emmett and I hid the produce items around the room. Then I showed him a picture and word card, he located the item and placed it next to the card. He loved this!!
For those kindergarteners that are ready to put words in alphabetical order, there are plenty of picture and word cards to create multiple sets to be manipulated and arranged. I designed three recording sheets, ranging from 4 words in a set to 6 words in a set. Students can arrange their word cards in alphabetical order and record them on their paper. Use this a center or make multiple stations around the room.
The next activity includes 47 colorful picture cards of fruits and vegetables. Again, these picture cards can be used in several ways, depending on your learners. In preschool, students can sort the picture cards by color. Today we talked about the idea of “eating the rainbow,” sorted the cards by color and pointed out fruits and vegetables that we like in each category. Emmett noticed there’s nothing purple that he likes, so I challenged him to find something purple to try next time we go to the grocery store. You could also talk about the difference between fruits and vegetables and sort the picture cards accordingly.
In preschool and kindergarten, these picture cards can be used to practice beginning sounds. I designed a sorting mat for each letter of the alphabet and created at least one picture card for each letter sound. I decided to use the most recent three letters that Emmett has learned to practice today. To be honest, there are a lot of produce items in the story that I don’t buy on a regular basis or have ever had before. We referenced the word and picture cards for some of the pictures and talked about how we’ve never had gooseberries before and would like to try them!
I also created two versions of this beginning sounds cover up mat. Each mat has 12 vibrant pictures of different produce from the story. There are alphabet cards included as well, but you can also use your own alphabet letters. This mat fits perfectly on a cookie sheet with magnetic letters.
Emmett is still learning his letter sounds, so he completed this activity with this Alphabet Linking Chart by his side. Whenever he needed to remember what sound a letter made, he checked his linking chart, said the corresponding name on the chart, and isolated the beginning sound. Then he was able to match the beginning sounds from the linking chart to the beginning sounds of the pictures on the Cover Up Mat. (Click HERE if you need a linking chart. It’s FREE!!)
Finally, here’s a look at the Fruits and Vegetables Alphabet Flash Cards and Letter Draw activity. The flash cards, again, have so many uses. You can have your preschoolers and kindergarteners name the letters, say the sounds, or write the letters that they choose. You can also be intentional about which letters you want your little learners to practice and separate the cards accordingly.
Emmett and I flipped all of the cards face down onto the table and took turns turning them over, one at a time. On our turn, we said the name of the letter, the sound the letter makes and wrote the letter (both uppercase and lowercase) on the recording sheet. He worked really hard on this and took great care in his letter formation.
All of these fun, engaging fruit and vegetable activities for preschool and kindergarten are available in my shop. Click the button below to check them out!!
You may also be interested in these alphabet activities!
Mrs Mama Bird 