Do you need a done-for-you lesson plan for your homeschool preschool Co Op with the letter U? I gathered all my favorite letter U crafts and preschool ideas, then put it together for a full 2 hour preschool lesson.
Welcome to Preschool Co Op! If you are wanting to know how to start an at home preschool co op, go here for beginning instructions. If you are all set, and just want to hop into the Letter U preschool co op lesson plan, then let’s go!
I have found that on average, each section takes around 15 minutes per project. So I always plan 8 sections for a 2 hour class.
Preschool Words Starting With U
Underground, unicorn, umbrella, up, United States Of America.
the 8 Sections to lesson U:
- Welcome: Create Pudding Dirt Cups (underground)
- Introduction to the letter U
- Unicorn horn U painting
- Handwriting U (print)
- Underground Lesson – Planting Chia Seeds
- Snack Time: Underground Dirt Cups
- Story Time: The Carrot Seed/Unicorn Books
- Lesson on United States of America, or Where do you live?
- Unicorn Story Game
Supplies to Buy at the Store or Online
- Handwriting helpers for little hands (optional)
- Pens
- Printing Paper and Ink
- Markers/crayons/or colored pencils
- scissors
- Glue
- Dirt Cups Ingredients
- Mini Umbrellas to go on top of dirt cups
- paint and paintbrush
- paper and string for unicorn horn.
- Construction paper
- Chia seed sprouting ingredients
- Snack ideas: Underground dirt cups
- mini water cups
- Buy, rent from library, or find online: Book “Baby Unicorn” “Baby Unicorn and Dragon” or “Carrot Seed” (Full disclosure: I loved the Baby Unicorn and Baby Unicorn and Dragon books when I was little. LOVED them. As an adult. . . there is a part when the mom turns into a house for the baby unicorn to live in, and then the baby unicorn breaks free. . . It’s a little odd now that I think about it. . . but I still kinda love it anyways.)
Optional Note: Many people have asked for just the coloring handwriting pages that I made for each letter. You can find each of them for FREE on each letter lesson plan. OR you can BUY IT as a digital download (CLICK HERE) or a physical copy (CLICK HERE)
Prep Work
Week before: go over supply list and buy all the online items.
2 days before: Go on a shopping trip to pick up the rest of the needed supplies.
Day Before:
Printables:
- Download and print 1 handwriting U coloring page per child
- Download and print 1 set of Letter U Visuals/Unicorn activity combo
- Prep “Where do you live?” By printing off 1 ‘places’ paper for each child. Cut the boys/girls page into individual pieces. Each child will need 10 boys or girls each. (They will glue “themselves” in the middle of each place.)
- Prepare Dirt Cups ready to be assembled by the kids
- Prepare chia seeds ready to be assembled and taken home. each of them can take a sandwich recipe with them so they can eat the chia sprouts when they are ready.
- Prep for Unicorn Horn painting
Night before set up:
Prepare your home with these suggestions here
welcome Activity: Making Underground Dirt Cups
Have each of the kids follow these directions here: Make sure you top it with the U Umbrellas (each child gets a different color to remember whose is whose. . . or write their initials carefully on the umbrella.
Introducing The Letter U
Welcome everyone, do you remember what letter we learned last time? what was it’s sound? Do you remember any of the words that start with T ?
What letter are we learning about now?
let’s sing the abc song.
It’s U!
The Letter U is a vowel, can everyone say vowel? vowels are the sounds we make when our mouths are open. like AAHOHHHUHHIHHEhhh and uhhh. Letter U has 2 sounds UHHHH as in umbrella and you as in unicorn. You draw u like a big smile. and you draw lowercase u like a little smile with a little tongue sticking out.
Unicorn Horn Painting U
Have everyone draw an Uppercase U and a lowercase u on a piece of paper using their unicorn horn paintbrush. They can also make the horn. It only takes a few minute (Instructions Here)
Underground lesson: Planting Chia Seeds
Let’s talk about what is underground. lots of things are happening underground. Did you know that a part of all trees and flowers and plants live underground? those are called roots. (take them outside and look at roots if possible).
We also find lots of bugs underground. Grubs are underground. They grow up to be beetles. Worms are underground, they help eat the boring dirt and turn it into yummy dirt for plants and trees.
there are lots of ants underground. Do you have ants near your house? Does it hurt if they bite you? How do you know to stay away from their houses?
There are even some big animals that live underground, like the mole, or the groundhog or prairie dogs. and sometimes even snakes make their homes in the ground. If you see a hole like this, maybe stay away from it, you never know whose house it is.
Help them plant chia seeds underground, in a clear plastic cup. Take it home and have them see it grow (chia seeds grow really quickly, and are difficult to mess up). They can even eat the sprouts on a sandwich if they want. (It takes 8 days at the most for chia seeds to sprout).
Handwriting: the letter U
Gather everyone to the table with pens and coloring pencils or crayons, and have them practice writing uppercase and lowercase D with this free printable, and the preschoolers can color the picture afterwards.
Snack beginning with the letter U
Underground Dirt Cups they made earlier
Story time with letter book: planting a carrot/ Unicorn and dragon books
Lesson on U – United States (Where do you live?)
Where do you live? You live in the country USA (this can still be used for other countries, just don’t mention what this has to do with the letter U. I promise, the kids won’t pick up on it) How big is your country? who else lives in this country? Well, let’s talk about you. (boy pics, girl pics you can choose from in visual packet).
Where do you live? you live in a room in your house. Do you share your room? Your room lives in a house. Who else lives in your house? How many other bedrooms are there in your house?
Your house lives on a street. Do other people have houses on your street? Your house and street live in a city.
What city do you live in? Who else lives in the same city? Your city lives in a state.
What state do you live in? That means everyone else in your city lives in that same state. There are also some other cities that live in the state (name some) that state lives inside your country.
Your country is called ‘(example: The United States Of America’). This country lives in a continent.
(Example: North America). And this continent lives in the planet Earth.
And this planet earth lives in the sun’s solar system, which lives in the galaxy called the Milky way, which lives in the Universe, which holds everything! How cool is that?!
Where You Live Activity
(For an activity, have the kids glue themselves in all the places that they live: Their room, then in the house, street, city, state, country, continent, world, solar system, and universe.
For older kids, you can help them fill out their house number, street, city, etc,. You may want to have them do their address with their parents when they get home. But you can help them fill out State, Country, Continent, World (Earth) (our solar system is named Solar System) Galaxy (Milky Way).
Unicorn Making-Up Story
Unicorns are so beautiful. Who here likes unicorns? What makes them so special? Unicorns are mythical, or magical creatures, do you know what that means? it means that they aren’t real, but there are real stories, pictures, and even movies about them.
What kind of magic do you think is in a unicorn’s horn? We are going to come up with our own unicorn story. It can have other magical creatures in it? Like dragons, griffins, hypogryphs, fairies, what else?
Using the Mad Lib paper, have them all help fill in the blanks. Make sure that you get input from everyone there at least once. When you are done, read the story out loud to them. If they can, see if they can act out their story while you read it again.