For our oviparous animal unit, I chose a simple white egg as the photograph for our free egg do-a-dot phonics printable. Whether you want your child or students to decorate the dots with Easter egg designs or any other type of design, I’ll leave it to your imagination. As usual, the printable is an instant download, versatile, and super easy to prepare.
Montessori-Inspired Printables at Living Montessori Now
My daughter, Christina (a former Montessori child), and I are partnering to bring you a series of Montessori-inspired printables. The printables are typically themed and use a number of Montessori principles (although you don’t need to be a Montessori teacher or homeschooler to use them):
- They use isolation of quality.
- They use photographs or realistic images to emphasize reality. Whenever I can, I’ll tell you the specific name of the object or animal featured on the credits page. This month’s do-a-dot printable is a simple white chicken egg.
- They typically use traditional Montessori colors such as red for consonants and blue for vowels.
- They use lowercase letters, which are what we introduce letter sounds with in Montessori education. (Children tend to pick up the uppercase letters without being introduced if they’re introduced to the lowercase letter sounds.)
- They often feature themed printable versions of Montessori materials.
Free Egg Do-a-Dot Phonics Printable
To download the egg do-a-dot phonics printables, click here and then click on the file image in the upper right corner of the PDF to save to your computer (just choose where you want it saved).
Montessori-Inspired Activities Using the Egg Do-a-Dot Printable
Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links (at no cost to you).
Letter E Do-a-Dot Tray with Pastel Do-a-Dot Markers
Tray with Egg Do-a-Dot Printable and Pastel Do-a-Dot Markers
For our egg do-a-dot tray, I found these fun, washable, pastel do-a-dot markers. I wanted to give the activity a spring/Easter feel. I placed everything on our usual Multicraft tray.
This do-a-dot printable can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the age and ability of the child. A younger child could just use do-a-dot markers, stickers, or some sort of transfer on the do-a-dot page and focus on the /ĕ/ sound in egg while an older child could build the word with the movable alphabet. I included the “e” font card from our Montessori-Inspired Oviparous Animal Pack. The font card has cursive letter “e” and the same egg image. I like to introduce children to both print and cursive letters. I don’t use a font or phonogram card with young toddlers, but it’s great for preschoolers on up.
You could add a tracing activity to the printable. If you laminate your printable, you can use an erasable crayon like the Melissa & Doug Learning Mat Crayons or Crayola Erasable Crayons. If your page isn’t laminated, you could add a pencil or colored pencils. I often do that. For a 2-year-old or other young preschooler who’s not ready to write letters, you can just leave off the crayon or pencils.
Scroll down to see lots of ideas for using our do-a-dot printables for a variety of ages and themes.
Oviparous Animal Books, Phonemic Awareness Activity, and Do-a-Dot Work
Having Fun with E for Egg Do-a-Dot Page and Pastel Do-a-Dot Markers
I like to start with books for our theme. You can see the oviparous animal books we first used on the top shelf in my Free Oviparous Animal Printables and Montessori-Inspired Oviparous Animal Activities post.
Caleb is now 24 months old. For toddlers, I typically use the do-a-dot printables for vocabulary, hearing the beginning sound of a word, and fine-motor skills. Generally, with toddlers, I’ll just focus on the /ĕ/ sound at the beginning of “egg.”
Note: I use a child-size apron for toddler do-a-dot work. Caleb is wearing a toddler-size Montessori Services apron that I got on sale. Montessori Services has a number of child-size aprons for toddlers and others for older children.)
For a phonics lesson with young toddlers, I might casually say that egg starts with /e/ (the sound, not the letter name). This is just to introduce hearing the phonetic sound. I don’t focus on the letter “e,” although I use the printable that we already have available. We often focus on the child hearing the beginning sound by saying something like, “Egg, /ĕ/, egg.”
Caleb loves working with sandpaper letters and learning letter sounds in a number of ways, so we’re doing more focused work on the letter sounds now. We follow the order shown in this post along with adding the featured letter. I don’t worry about going out of order for the monthly theme.
I always have a number of extra pages available for toddlers and preschoolers in case they have a need to repeat the activity. Caleb had so much fun that he filled in each dot on 6 different pages! He even made a special page for his mommy, who’s been sick with the flu. So sweet!
I only use printables with toddlers that can be used for hands-on work, such as do-a-dot work, scissor cutting (cutting strips), or another type of printable that can be made into a manipulative. Printables when used with manipulatives are great for fine-motor development, work on important skills, and fit with the hands-on activities that are developmentally appropriate for toddlers.
If you want to know more about how to introduce the /ĕ/ sound, check out my post on how to teach letter sounds using Montessori principles.
If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers.
As always, adapt your presentations for your unique child!
More Oviparous Animal Resources
- Free Oviparous Animal Printables and Montessori-Inspired Oviparous Animal Activities
- Free Oviparous Animal Songs and Educational Videos
- Montessori-Inspired Fun with Easter Eggs and Oviparous Animals
- Montessori-Inspired Life Cycle Activities
- Free Easter Egg Printables and Montessori-Inspired Easter Egg Activities
- Check out my monthly themed posts for oviparous animals as the main theme. Many of them have been about oviparous animals.
Don’t miss our themed monthly packs! You’ll get the link and password for the Living Montessori Now subscriber library with the current pack and all the past monthly packs if you subscribe to the Living Montessori Now weekly newsletter!
Free Do-a-Dot Printables and Ideas for Using Them
I love the versatility of do-a-dot printables! If you’re doing a month-long theme, you could easily change out the type of do-a-dot activity weekly to add interest. Here are four ideas of hands-on activities for any of our do-a-dot printables from my frog do-a-dot printable post (see post for details and materials used).
Just click on an image to go to the post with the related free printable!
Note: I’ve arranged the following gallery in alphabetical order, although some posts have two do-a-dot printables (and two different letters). Also, I don’t introduce letters in alphabetical order. You can find out the order in which I introduce letter sounds here. I deviate from that order for our unit studies, though, and focus on a letter that’s simply related to our unit. That’s in addition to our other letter work.
You can see all our free do-a-dot printables with the latest at the top here.
For complete themed alphabet do-a-dot packs, see our Animal Alphabet Do-a-Dot Pack, Spanish Animal Alphabet Do-a-Dot Pack, and Healthy Food Alphabet Do-a-Dot Pack available for purchase in the Living Montessori Now shop.
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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