Summary: Everyone loves Little Gorilla: his mother, his father, his aunts and uncles, Big Boa Constrictor, and all of the other animals living in the forest with him. Then one day, Little Gorilla begins to grow...and grow...and grow, until suddenly, at his birthday celebration, Little Gorilla's family and friends discover that he isn't little anymore! A cute board book that has become a favorite book in my home.
The little girls read Little Gorilla with their grandma. A great way to start out our Letter G week!
ABC Letter Introduction Activity
I created an ABC letter box to start out each letter unit. On the first day of the letter study, the girls dig through the box to find the objects. We name all the objects and listen to the first sound the word makes. Then I point to the letter and tell them that this is the letter that makes the /g/ sound. You can find more details about the ABC Letter box and how to use it at Spell Outloud.
ABC Letter Learning Activities
I forgot I had Pocket Pals by Marilynn G. Barr. When I looked through it, I found Gg for gorilla! Perfect for our study. My two girls colored the picture cards, then we cut and laminated them. The gorilla only got to hold pictures that had the “g” sound.
We went over our gorilla poem/coloring/handwriting page (download available below).
I printed out letter G playdough sheet from Homeschool Creations and picked up a set of jungle stickers. For my 2yr. old, my main objective was to have her practice getting stickers off the sticker paper and placed onto the page (fine motor skill practice). For my 4yr. old, I had her place the big gorillas on the capital G and the little gorillas on the lower-case g.
We have a set of ABC playdough cards that go along with our handwriting program. You can print out ABC playdough mats and slip into page protectors instead of using these cards. My girls are thrilled anytime they get to use playdough or clay. It’s a great way to incorporate some fine motor-skill practice along with letter learning.
ABC Crafts
We had some gooey gorilla fun making our own growing gorilla. You can find the complete gorilla craft instructions on my blog.
These look like gorillas, right? :) Maybe next time we make these I’ll let the girls paint the eggs first. These are our gorillas who are growing grass for hair. They loved making gorilla chia-pets!
ABC Theme Ideas
We practiced putting Little Gorilla in order by size. As you can see, we’re still working on this concept :)
My son happened to have a Webkinz gorilla that he let us use for this unit. We used it to retell the story and work on positional words (put the gorilla next to the chair, place the gorilla under the blanket etc.)
We made a reversible gorilla-face stick puppet (template available from
StoryPlace.org). We talked about how happy Little Gorilla was when he knew his family and friends loved him. But when Little Gorilla wasn’t sure if they’d love him when he got big, he was sad. This led to discussions about what makes us happy and sad.
Another fun activity to do would be to throw a pretend birthday party for Little Gorilla. Have all the guest bring letter Gg gifts.
Downloads: 
For each letter I will be providing several downloadable resources plus a letter planner page. You can find these resources at
Spell Outloud’s HSPrintables.
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 
