Letter Mm

Teaching letters and their sounds is always a fun journey in Kindergarten.
But we don’t JUST teach letters and their sounds.
We use the topic and idea of the letter M and expand it to be so much more.
Additionally, as educators we have a responsibility to make this path of learning so much FUN.

Let’s explore some fun ways to teach the Letter Mm!
To introduce the letter of the week,
I read the Alphatales book and we listen to the
Have Fun Teaching Video and Song for the Letter Mm.

Then we take a good chunk of time using sensory based activities to work on letter formation.
Here is why I feel this step is vital for the learning process.
Many of my students recognize the M and a few recognize the m for this letter.
A few students will know the sound it makes.
But MOST of the students need help with letter formation.

Therefore my goal this week is to help teach all of these skills at the same time.
And if we start with the letter formation,
then we can build the entire week practicing letter formation along with all the other skills.

Here is the letter formation mat we use.
I make copies of this sheet and cut them in half.

We can use sand trays,
gel bags,plastic canvas,
just to name a few options.

On Tuesday through Thursday,
we also read the Alphatales book and listen to the Have Fun Teaching Songs,
AND
we complete these phonics activities.

This is one day’s activities.
This day focuses on the capital M.

And this another day’s activity.
This day focuses on the lowercase m.

On Friday, we go a whole group chart.
I project the colorful chart to my class and they use their printable.
We take our time to give words that have an Mm in them.
We clap out the syllables in each word and write it out.
I typically use the first column for words that START with an M,
the middle column for those that have an m in the middle,
and the last column for those that end with an m.

You can do this as a write the room,
small group activity,
or complete it however works for your students.

We have to extend phonics and such skills well beyond phonics time.
We practice these skills during our literacy time for word work.

Let me break down some of the ideas for you.
We use the printables in the back for letter identification practice.
We also use the front handwriting sheets to reinforce our first letter formation practice.

In small groups, we love to complete sorting mats.

Here is a look at the letter Mm and Nn activity.

We also use this printable version.

One word work activity is this mailman activity.

We deliver the mail to correct letter,
and in this case we deliver the mail using initial sound practice.
Kk gets kite.
Ll wants lion

I also use the letter of the week in my math centers and activities.

Here are two ten frame printables I love to use…
monkey themed style for the letter Mm.

And this one is a freebie I will tell you how to grab at the bottom of this post.

I also love using these monster themed number mats as an additional activity.

Let me show you how to use these activities and ideas in your classroom.
There are 4 versions of these monster mats.Each monster is differentiated.

Can you see how two different monster mats differ?

Each type of monster comes with three sheets.

One mat has dotted numbers, one mat has solid numbers,
and the last mat is a printable for independent practice.

I print out ONE copy of the dotted mat and solid mat.
{Since there are 4 types of monsters, I print two mats per monster for a total of 8 for this activity.}
I laminate both sheets.
Then I take the SOLID monster sheet and cut it apart using the grid.

The students write their numbers using the dotted line version.

Then the student pulls a number out of the baggie and orders the numbers
ON TOP OF THE MAT THEY WROTE ON
to form the monster.
Think of it as a monster puzzle.

How fun is that?

The last activity we complete this monkey number fill in game.

We place the banana in the number line to sequence numbers.

You can grab all of these activities in the Letter Mm {Print & Play Pack}
which is part of this bundle.

Here is a good glimpse of the whole pack.

And you can grab your freebie printable by clicking {here}
and then clicking the green PREVIEW button.
You download that file and the ten frame printable is there… FOR FREE. 🙂

And if you have questions about sensory phonics ideas,
check out this post.

If you are interested in colored baggies,
check out this post.