Living Montessori Now

Montessori Inspiration for Parents and Teachers

FREE Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Printables (Montessori-Inspired Phonics Instant Download)

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A bat unit is so much fun before Halloween! To add to the fun, I’m sharing free do-a-dot printables for both /b/ for bat in general and /v/ for vampire bat! They can both be used for beginning sound work or for more advanced phonics work. As usual, the free printable is an instant download and super easy to prepare!

FREE Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Printables (Montessori-Inspired Phonics Instant Download)

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

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, Chrissy (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. The /b/ for bat has photographs of a Lyle’s flying fox and a vampire bat. I love how Chrissy designed the /b/ for bat with the bat hanging from the letter “b”!
  • 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 Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Phonics Printables

To download the bat and vampire bat 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).

Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Tray with Glass Gem Transfer

Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Tray with Glass Gem Transfer

Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Tray with Glass Gem Transfer

Note: This is just one example of how you can use the do-a-dot printables. There are many ways to use our do-a-dot printables. Scroll down to see examples from previous posts. Just choose an activity that’s appropriate for your child’s age and skill level.

Young childen generally LOVE glass gems. They’re so pretty and fun to touch. They’re perfect with do-a-dot printables, especially when using a tool for transferring the gems from container to the dots. (Note: Be careful with glass gems around children who still mouth objects since they’re a choking hazard and very inviting. With children under age 3, I don’t leave the glass gems on the shelf and only have the glass gems available when I’m directly working with the child.)

You can use a variety of tools for transfer activities, such as quick sticks, sugar tongs, or toast tong (what’s pictured). I used a wooden Multicraft tray for the activity.

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 /b/ sound in bat or the /v/ sound in vampire bat while an older child could build the word with the movable alphabet. I included the “b” font card and “i_e” phonogram card from our Montessori-Inspired Bat Pack. I don’t use a font 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.

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

Bat Phonics Activities and Glass Gem Transfer

Sounding Out Vampire Bat Movable Alphabet Spelling

Sounding Out Vampire Bat Movable Alphabet Spelling

This type of activity is wonderful for fine-motor development, increasing attention span, and reinforcing letter sounds. For older children or children who are ready, you can focus on blending sounds into the word “bat” or spelling “bat” and/or “vampire bat.”

My 3½-year-old grandson, Caleb (Chrissy Chitwood‘s son) was fascinated with learning phonetic sounds and learned them much earlier than normal. Lately, he’s been obsessed with the movable alphabet. He can easily spell three-letter phonetic words and uses invented spelling to spell many more words. He’s into tools a lot, so he has fun spelling words like “rotre hamr” (rotary hammer). Note: Invented spelling is great and doesn’t need to be corrected.

Caleb is working on the green language series, so he was interested in learning that “silent /ē/ makes / ĭ,/ become /ī/.” I gave him the vampire bat do-a-dot first so that he could do the transfer with fewer glass gems. He had fun spelling “vampire bat.”

Then I gave him the bat do-a-dot page with some black 3/4″ dot stickers. He wanted to spell “bat” again with the movable alphabet and also traced the letters for “bat.” I don’t push writing letters at his age, but I have triangular grip pencils for my 3½-year-old grandkids for any writing or drawing they want to do. Triangular grip pencils are a great way to help young children develop the proper pencil. grip.

For children under age 3, 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 /b/ sound at the beginning of “bat.” 

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

With preschoolers who are working on 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.

If you want to know more about how to introduce the /b/ or /v/ sound, check out my post on how to teach letter sounds using Montessori principles.

I only use printables with children under age 3 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.

For older children who already know their letter sounds but still enjoy do-a-dot work, I often 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.)


Helpful Animal Classification Posts

Halloween PostsFree Bat Printables and Montessori-Inspired Bat Activities

Montessori-Inspired Bat Pack

Montessori-Inspired Bat Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my newsletter to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

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.

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