House Themed Toddler School Lessons
There’s no place like home! I know my favorite place to be is at home, and what better way to introduce the letter H and explore homes than with this House Themed Toddler Unit. You little one will love learning about the letter H while exploring, building, and learning all week!
If you want to learn more about how to get started planning activities for your little ones, download my FREE guide for everything you need to know about the skill areas we incorporate into toddler school:
Lesson Components
This unit is made up of 5 lessons that will each work on the following activities:
- literacy/language
- sensory bin
- math and science activities
- fine motor activities
- gross motor activities
- art activities
Interested in downloading these house activities that you can print and use right away? Click on the image or button below to check them out in my TpT shop!
Literacy Activities
Literacy skills develop early in our children, and this unit is FULL of activities to help develop these skills. Four books are included for you and your child to enjoy reading together that align with the house theme and the activities you will complete. The books include “I Can Help in my Home,” “The Three Little Pigs,” “Types of Houses,” and “Parts of a House.” While reading these books with your child, you can point out the title of the book, the front cover, the back cover, the spine, and the author’s name. You can even have your child color the books and become the book’s illustrator!
Art Activities
This unit includes so many fun art lessons and activities that are sure to keep your little ones busy while introducing and incorporating the letter Hh. To kick off the unit, you can have your child create a paper bag house. This is a perfect opportunity to work on using glue appropriately. You’ll model for your child how to glue the printable pieces onto the paper bag to make a cute little house. It’s also a great time to introduce or review shapes. The H is for House letter craft is a fun way to introduce the letter Hh to your child! For this art activity, you’ll turn the capital letter H into a house. Your child is sure to remember that H is for house after completing this fun (and easy to prep) project. You will give your child a cutout letter H and have him or her assemble the house by gluing the roof, door, windows, and chimney on. This is also a great time to review these shapes with your child. If your child isn’t quite ready to cut all of the pieces out, you can pre-cut the pieces for your child to glue on.
My children LOVE to paint and this Paint Your Bedroom art project is was a great way to make connections with this week’s theme and the home that we live in! To complete this activity with your child, you can use the Painting Your Bedroom printable from our unit or a blank piece of construction paper. Then, just give your child several paint colors. We love using Kwikstix Paint because the colors really pop and are virtually mess free! If you do this activity at home, you can sit inside your child’s room on a blanket and paint, or take a picture and enjoy this activity in the great outdoors.
Fine Motor Activities
Practicing fine motor skills is so important! Building strong muscles in your child’s hands will help with pencil grip, finger control, and cutting, which are all so important to practice before starting school! In this activity your child will use a q-tip to dot paint inside the upper and lowercase H. It’s also a great time to work on that inside/outside vocabulary by explaining to your child to paint inside the lines of the letter Hh!
Another fun fine motor activity that is included in this unit is the Hh play dough mat. What kid doesn’t love to use play dough!?! My kids (and students!) LOVE when we use it for learning! For this, you can place the play dough Hh printable inside a sheet protector. Your child will roll the play dough into snakes and then place the snakes on each line or curve of the letters to form the letters. Make sure to leave some time for free play with the play dough, too! Working with play dough is the perfect way to build up those tiny hand muscles and build strength and control in those fingers!
Learn even more about what fine motor skills are in this post: What are Fine Motor Skills?
Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are so much fun and, contrary to popular belief, they don’t always have to be messy! This sensory exploration activity is sure to be a hit with your little to kick off this house unit! And it’s not messy! All you’ll do is fill a bin with play dough, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, pom pom balls, and any other small objects you’d like to throw in there. Your child will use these objects to build a house. Remember, your child is young and the house does not actually have to look like a traditional house. Encourage your child to be creative and have fun building together. This is also a great opportunity to develop and expand that oral language! Have your child tell you all about his or her house, and ask lots of questions! Most importantly, have fun!
Did you know that working on puzzles can help your little one develop problem solving skills while working on finger strength? Adding puzzles to a sensory bin just increases the fun! To set up this activity, you will just fill up a bin with sand. Then, mix up the house puzzle pieces and set them in the bin. Your child will find all of the puzzle pieces and set the completed puzzles outside the bin. As always, make sure to leave plenty of time for free play in the bin for scooping, mixing, playing and building.
Math Activity
I love to expose little ones to counting skills through 1:1 correspondence activities. Plus, it is so easy to prep this activity! All you do is print, cut, and give your child the cards and some counters to use. For this activity, we used play dough instead of counters. Your child can even build the number with manipulatives or play dough, and then add the matching number of counters or play dough balls. Don’t forget to encourage your child to count aloud while doing this activity. Counting aloud and placing one object at a time on the mat is what will really solidify that 1:1 correspondence.
STEM Activity
STEM Activities are a great way to give your child a hands-on experience and build up those science, technology, engineering, and math skills! For this Shape House Craft, your child will build a house using basic shapes. To prepare, you’ll glue a piece of green construction paper to the bottom of a blue piece of construction paper to represent the sky and grass. This will be used as a blank canvas for creating a house out of shapes. You’ll want to give your child all of the pieces of the house and encourage them to create a house. For an added bonus, you can even print a picture of your family, and have your child glue the photo in the house, too!
This is another fun STEM exploration activity your littles will love! They will be so proud when they match the house puzzle pieces to the matching numbers! All you have to do is cut the pieces out! And voila! Your little one is ready to count and match!
I hope you found some great ideas to use at home with your little ones! If you want to make teaching your toddler super simple this week, then check out my House Toddler School Unit for 5 complete lesson plans and all the printables you need. You can also join us as we learn all year using our Toddler School Curriculum Bundle. I hope you enjoy every minute of playing, learning, and building with your little ones at home OR at school!
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Written on January 24th, 2022 by Laurin Brainard