Letter I Activities: Inchworms

Our week was divided in half so we could enjoy celebrating Halloween. The second half of the week we did a lot of inchworm activities to practice the letter I.

Inch by Inch Book Activities

To introduce the kids to inchworms we read the book Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni. We exercised those fine motor muscles by practicing inching along. The kids liked measuring parts of their bodies like the inchworm did in the story.

Big Buddy measured his arm.

Lovey measured from her knee to her ankle.

We even used inchworms (1-inch pieces of pipe cleaner) to measure our book. They were so surprised that both sides were the same length, so this led to a great math discussion.

After reading the story we also practiced the trait of voice. As a teacher I enjoyed using the 6+1 Traits of Writing, and I was always pleased how these activities came across in their writing. I try to include different aspects of the traits in our activities. To practice voice in a preschool way, we took turns pretending one child was the inchworm and the other child was one of the other characters in the story. Then they tried to say and act the way they thought the character would talk. For example, Inchworm would quiver and say, “Please don’t eat me!” Robin would say, “But I’m soooo hungry. I have to eat something.” It was hilarious to see them coming up with ideas.

Where’s The Inchworm? Alphabet Game

I borrowed the apple sponges from our fall sensory bin to play Where’s the (Inch)Worm. Kindergarten Works also shows how to play the game with apple cutouts in a pocket chart instead. To prepare the game I taped letter cards to the front of all of the apples. We focused on reviewing the letters we have learned so far this year.

We set the apples out in rows. While the kids weren’t looking I hid an inchworm card under one of the apples.

Then the kids took turns naming a letter and picking up that apple to see if they found the inchworm. We played until the inchworm was found, and then we hid the inchworm under a different letter and played again.

They played again and again! And then I left the game out and they took turns hiding the inchworm for each other. I love that this learning activity also encouraged them to take turns and cheer for each other. This game would also be great to use for letter sounds, shapes, sight words or number recognition.

Wiggle Worms Alphabet Game

We also modified this sweet game from Little Family Fun and used it to practice letter recognition.

I cut strips of green paper and drew an inchworm, a letter, or a heart on each one. Then I placed them all in a bucket.

The kids took turns pulling out a piece of paper. If it had an inchworm on it, everyone would stand up and wiggle like a worm. If it had a letter on it, everyone would say the name of the letter. If it had a heart on it, everyone would stand and give a group hug. This was a great activity to do in between stories during our reading time.

Inchworm Letter I

We used our 1-inch pipe cleaner inchworms to form the letter I. We counted how many inchworms we used.

Then we bent the pipe cleaners inchworms to look like they were crawling and glued them onto the letter I. We have been doing a similar activity for each letter and are compiling them into an alphabet memory book.

Inchworm Fork Painting

This inchworm painting activity from Teach Preschool looked so fun I knew everyone would love it. We took large sheets of white paper and the kids glued a green strip of paper and a little green dot (to make a lowercase i inchworm) somewhere on the paper. Then we used plastic forks and green paint to make grass all around the inchworm.

I loved watching how each of the kids went about this differently.

Tinker loved fork painting, too! Except after a bit she decided it was time to finger paint, so her picture turned out a bit different. 🙂

More Inchworm Ideas

Teach Preschool has a great playdough inchworm measuring activity that would be wonderful number recognition and fine motor practice. After measuring your playdough inchworms line them up from shortest to longest.

Homeschool Creations has a super cute inchworm toilet paper roll craft.

With Halloween and the Letter I, it was definitely a busy week around here. Next week we will be learning a little bit about Presidents and the United States of America to go along with the U.S. Presidential Election. We will also be learning about the Letter J. It is going to be another busy week, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

What are your favorite Letter I activities?