Tt is for Tools ~Now I Know MyABC’s

Tap, Tap, Bang, Bang by Emma Garcia

Summary: I enjoyed reading this book because of the illustrations! They are so cheery and fun! A great way to introduce young children to the names of various tools.
Theme Ideas:
  I felt a little unprepared for this unit. At one time we had a ton of plastic tools and accessories around the house. I guess I got rid of them after my son grew to big for them. I did find an old tool box that I had picked up at the Dollar Store years ago.

So I filled the tool box up with the only kid-tools I had on hand--- the tools from our Melissa and Doug tool puzzle. I also added various things that were not tools in the box. My daughter separated them into two groups—tools and not tools. I knew this was an easy sorting activity for her, but she loved it. We went over each tool’s name as she placed it back onto the puzzle. After she was done with the activity, I found her carrying around that tool box for the rest of the day.

For an easy size sequencing activity, I pulled out some wrenches.

She put them in order from biggest to smallest and from smallest to biggest. To make it harder, I could have added in a couple more sizes.

Next we pulled out the tape measure and practiced measuring. I had my son help me measure our little tot.

He drew a line marking how tall she was and then I had her line up dominoes on the line. Then we counted the dominoes to see how many it took to equal her height. Besides being a great counting exercise, it also made her concentrate on lining objects up along a line. This was not an easy task but she worked hard at it and did a good job.

Of course we did our tool poem and handwriting page. You can find the download for this page under Letter T. For the actual letter practice, we stuck to some of our normal letter tools:
- rolling a Tt out of playdough
- writing the letter in the salt box
- cutting and pasting letter Tt pictures

There were so many directions I wanted to take this theme, but I just ran out of time! To see some other tool-themed resources, check out my Letter T Pinterest board.
Other ABC Resources
ABC Printables from Homeschool Creations
Letter of the Week Curriculum from COAH
ABC Flashcards and More from 1+1+1=1
ABC Letter Crafts
Songs for Saplings ABC Verses