These free printable winter themed letter matching cards are a fun, low prep way to help your little learner practice matching their uppercase and lowercase letters. They're a great fit for your homeschool preschool winter theme or a unit on weather appropriate clothing because they feature a cute sweater and pair of mittens.
Letter matching activities help preschoolers and kindergarteners associate the lowercase letters with their uppercase matches. They're perfect for a literacy center or go-bag of activities. When laminated, they're durable enough for repeated use. I hope you enjoy!
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Teaching letter case matching to preschoolers
There are different ways to teach your child the alphabet. Some educators teach uppercase letters first, but others teach lowercase first. There are valid arguments for both options. Uppercase letters can be easier to tell apart, but lowercase letters can be easier to write and are more common.
I personally taught my daughter lowercase letters first, as in the Montessori method. (I also taught letter sounds and am not teaching the alphabet in "alphabetical order." Living Montessori Now has an in-depth post on what order Montessori teaches letters in and why.)
Whether you teach upper or lowercase first, your child will have to know both to read successfully. These cute, free printables can help!
How to use and prepare alphabet matching cards
These cards are easy to prepare and use.
Materials needed:
- Free printable winter alphabet matching cards (The download link is lower in the post. Look for the row of purple arrows.)
- Cardstock or paper
- I love this 32 lb paper for printables. It's heavier than "normal" printer paper and has much better images. See a comparison of several papers and cardstocks in this post about the best paper for printables.
- Laminator and pouches
- Optional but helpful. Cards are reusable and easy to clean when you laminate them.
- Scissors and/or paper trimmer.
- A heavy duty paper cutter is best for laminated cards, but I've used this paper trimmer for laminated pages, too.
How to use alphabet matching cards:
Download and print your alphabet matching cards (keep scrolling until you see a row of purple arrows pointing at the "download here" picture.)
Laminate the pages first, unless your laminator instructs you differently. My laminator says to laminate pages, then cut.
Cut the cards. A paper cutter or paper trimmer works best, but you can use scissors. If your child is a bit older (4-5 years) and working on their cutting skills, you can have them use a pair of blunt-nosed small scissors to cut the cards. You can also cut the cards into strips, then have your little learner snip the cards apart. My daughter uses these small scissors from Fiskars.
If you don't have a laminator, you can protect the cut cards with a layer of clear packing tape. It isn't the same, but it's more protection than nothing!
Introduce a few letters to your child. I recommend starting with the four letters your child knows best in the case they know best. If your child is already proficient with letters, you can use more to begin with - even the whole set.
Review these four letters, then introduce the matching pairs. Remind your child that their winter outfit needs a sweater and a pair of mittens so they get an uppercase and a lowercase letter. The sweater cards are larger with letters in the upper right corner. The mittens cards are smaller and can be placed on top so that both letters are visible.
I love the "I do, we do, you do" method for activities like this. First you model how to match the letters, then you have your child help, and finally they do it independently.
Printable letter matching cards download
These alphabet matching cards for winter are licensed for personal and single classroom use. This includes use with your personal therapy clients, library activity you are organizing, etc.
You are not licensed to redistribute the digital file or print outs to other adults for use with their children/studnets. Please refer them to this post so they can download their own copies.
If you agree to this license, you may click below:
I hope your little learner enjoys these winter alphabet matching cards as much as mine does! Be sure to grab these additional free printables while you're here:
Preschool Alphabet Printables
Free Printable Alphabet Coloring Pages
These alphabet coloring pages are a fun, no-prep way to introdue the alphabet to your little learner.
Free Printable Alphabet Play Dough Mats
Get your chid's body invovled with learning the alphabet with these free printable alphabet play dough mats.
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