There are so many ways to lasso in some excitement to your Wild West theme. With an engaging theme, a little spark of imagination, and a few manipulatives, learning will come to life with these hands-on Wild West literacy activities for our preschoolers.
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Wild West Lesson Plans
Letter Jail Initial sound Activity
Wild West Literacy Activities
Oh, no! These letters have been too noisy, making their letter sounds, and now they’re wanted by the sheriff. Find the letters and lock them up in letter jail so that this Wild West town can hear the crickets sing again.
I don’t know why children are so obsessed with jails, but we used that fascination this week to “lock up” their attention with this Wild West literacy activity!
Materials:
- Letter Jail Initial Sound Activity
- cookie sheet (Dollar Tree)
- magnetic letters
Syllable Saloon
Wild West Counting Syllables
“Howdy, partner. Only words with 1 syllable can enter the Syllable Saloon marked with a 1.”
Adding just a little bit of a country accent really brought this activity to life for the kiddos.
Another way to add a little more pizazz to this Wild West literacy center is to cut the saloon doors open so they open and close. Just stand them up using wooden blocks taped to the back and push the cards through the swinging doors.
It’s all about the little things to amp up interest and engagement with any of these Wild West literacy activities.
Materials:
- Syllable Saloon
- wooden blocks (to prop up saloons)
Cowboy Letter TRace
Letter Formation Activity
Now that my little one has mastered the basic letter shapes, I really wanted to start working on proper letter formation.
These Cowboy Tracing Cards include stars and numbers to show where to start each stroke. The arrows also help guide kiddos in which direction to go.
We traced these with our fingers on one day and with dry-erase markers on another day. Such an easy one to add to your Wild West literacy activities!
Materials:
Pan for Gold
Wild West Letter Match
Thanks to all that Gold Rush that my husband watches, my daughter officially has gold fever.
So when we went to the Ghost Town museum and she had her hand at panning for gold (and finding the gold flakes they planted in there), she didn’t want to leave!
So give your students some gold fever with a sensory bin for them to pretend to be prospectors. Search for the lettered gold nuggets by sifting through sand with a strainer and match your gold nuggets to the gold pan with the matching letter.
Seems like we struck it rich with this Wild West literacy activity!
Materials:
- Pan for Gold Letter Matching Activity
- sensory bin filled with sand
- strainer or sand sifter
Lasso the Letter
Wild West Literacy Activities
All of the Thanksgiving holidays really blur into one. You eat, you hang out, you leave overstuffed.
But one year, my mother came down with the flu on Thanksgiving; therefore, it was canceled. (My dad only cooks grilled cheese and eggy sandwiches.)
So before long, my sister and I were lassoing each other with a rope and tying impossible knots for the other to escape from – Houdini style. Long story short, I won and left my sister tied up on the couch.
And that rope-tying Thanksgiving will forever be in my memory!
And we want literacy activities that will rope in some core memories with our students, too!
So, make some lassos using pipe cleaners and lace on letter beads to match the letters on the cattle. It’s your call if they are allowed to swing it around their heads and yell, “Yeehaw!”
Then, for students who are ready to sound CVC words out, say the word and flip over the card to check our word with the picture.
For students not quite ready to read, you can just have them lace the matching letters on lassos without sounding out each word.
Materials:
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MORE Wild West Activities for Preschoolers
You may have to ring the bell more than once to call your cowboys and cowgirls back to base camp after all of the excitement from these Wild West literacy activities! But hey, there’s always more time for learning and fun out in the Wild West, right!? Grab the bundle to save on all the Wild West activities for preschoolers!
