FREE Vegetables Do-a-Dot Phonics Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)

Healthy eating is an important topic at any time, but I especially love a vegetable unit in the summer when the freshest fruits and vegetables are available. With my 2-year-old grandson’s fascination with the farmers’ market and fresh fruits and vegetables, I had to design a vegetables do-a-dot work for him! As usual, the free vegetables do-a-dot printable is an instant download, versatile, and super easy to prepare.

Note: Be sure to read to the bottom of the post where you’ll find lots of ideas for using do-a-dot printables along with at least one free do-a-dot printable for each letter of the alphabet!

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 simply a photograph of a collection of vegetables.
• 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 Vegetables Do-a-Dot Phonics Printable

To download the vegetables 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 Vegetables Do-a-Dot Printable

Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Vegetables Do-a-Dot Phonics Tray with Vegetable Stickers

Stickers are an especially fun activity for toddlers, and they’re great for fine-motor development. Because of the fascination Caleb (Christina’s son) has with all things fruit and vegetables, I couldn’t resist these fruit and vegetable stickers. They only come in 1″ circles, and ¾” circles are needed for the do-a-dot circles. Fortunately, I had this ¾” punch that I could use to make the right-size circles. The circles were a bit tricky to get separated from the sticker sheet. I stuck 13 vegetable circles on a piece of wax paper. This wouldn’t be the easiest for a classroom, but it was great for home use. Lot of stickers came in the package, so I’m using them for many activities for my 2-year-old grandkids.

Of course, you can use a variety of tools for transfer activities, such as quick sticks, sugar tongs, or toast tongs. I used a wooden Multicraft tray for the activity.

You can add erasable crayons or markers to a laminated page for preschoolers to work on tracing skills. I don’t have my 2-year-old grandkids trace letters or numbers except with their fingers. I just showed how I place colored pencils on the tray for children who are ready for tracing work. 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. If you only have a 2-year-old or other young preschooler who’s not ready to write letters, you can just leave off the crayon or pencils.

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 /v/ sound in vegetables while an older child could build the word with the movable alphabet. I included the manuscript “v” font card from our Montessori-Inspired Fruit and Vegetable Pack. I like to introduce children to both print and cursive letters, so often I’ll add the cursive letter to the tray. I don’t use a font card with young toddlers, but it’s great for preschoolers on up.

Scroll down to see lots of ideas for using our do-a-dot printables for a variety of ages and themes.

Vegetables Phonemic Awareness Activity and Sticker Work

This type of activity is wonderful for fine-motor development, increasing attention span, and reinforcing letter sounds. Caleb had so much fun identifying all the vegetables!

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 /v/ sound at the beginning of “vegetables.”

For a phonics lesson with young toddlers, I might casually say that vegetables starts with /v/ (the sound, not the letter name). This is just to introduce hearing the phonetic sound. I don’t focus on the letter “v,” although I use the printable that we already have available. We often focus on the child hearing the beginning sound by saying something like, “Vegetables, /v/, vegetables.”

Both of my 2-year-old grandkids love working with sandpaper letters and learning letter sounds, so we’re doing more focused work on the letter sounds now. This is what I do with preschoolers who are learning their letter sounds. 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 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 /v/ 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.

For older children who already know their letter sounds but still enjoy do-a-dot work, I add the print movable alphabet word building, phonogram work, another hands-on activity to go with the do-a-dot work, and/or cursive movable alphabet and word analysis work. (Note: These examples have more than one type of additional activity, which I like for older children.)

As always, adapt your presentations for your unique child!

Fruit and Vegetable Sorting Activity Using the Fruit and Vegetable Stickers

This isn’t a do-a-dot activity, but it was a fun way for Caleb to extend work with the fruit and vegetable stickers. The stickers didn’t need to be smaller than 1″ for this activity.

I used the free I Can Sort Fruits and Vegetables by Awesome Preschool at Teachers Pay Teachers. We had used this printable previously with the Safari Ltd. Fruits and Vegetables TOOB. Caleb loved doing this and was so proud of his pages! At another time, we’ll use the photographs of fruits and vegetables included with the sorting page for a sorting and gluing activity.

More Fruit and Vegetable Resources

• Free Fruit & Vegetable Printables and Montessori-Inspired Fruit & Vegetable Activities
• Free Eat-a-Rainbow Printables and Montessori-Inspired Activities
• Free Fruit Rainbow Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download
• Free Eat-a-Rainbow Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
• Montessori-Inspired Fruit Unit
• Montessori-Inspired Vegetable Unit
• Montessori-Inspired Food Art
• Montessori-Inspired Fruit Matching and Tasting for Toddlers
• Healthy, Yummy, Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins
• Kids’ Kitchen: Berry Yummy and Healthy Protein-Rich Popsicles
• Cutting a Banana Practical Life Activity for Toddlers
• Healthy, Frozen Raspberry and Yogurt Desert (Dairy-Free and Gluten-Free)
• Ants on a Log Food Fun Preparation for Preschoolers
• Fun with Montessori Apple Coring, Slicing, Spreading, and Sharing
• Yummy Gluten-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Delicious and Nutritious Vegan, Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie or Pumpkin-Pie Squares
• Super-Healthy and Super-Yummy Strawberry Pineapple Smoothie
• Favorite Gluten-Free Sweet Spinach Muffins {AKA Green Monster Muffins}
• Kids’ Food Fun Pinterest Board

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). You’ll find at least one free do-a-dot printable for each letter of the alphabet!

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!

The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.

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