Living Montessori Now

Montessori Inspiration for Parents and Teachers

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

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We’ve had lots of fun with our farm unit! It’s a great theme for toddlers as well as preschoolers and kindergarteners. Today’s free farm do-a-dot printable is perfect for reinforcing the beginning sound with letter identification or simply for vocabulary and hearing beginning sounds. As usual, the do-a-dot printable is an instant download and super-easy to prepare!

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

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 printables is simply a photograph of a farm.
  • 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 Farm Do-a-Dot Phonics Printable

To download the farm 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 Farm Do-a-Dot Printable

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

Letter F Do-a-Dot Farm Sticker Tray

Letter F Do-a-Dot Farm Sticker Tray

Letter F Do-a-Dot Farm Sticker 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 /f/ sound, while an older child could trace the letters, and build the word “farm” with the Montessori movable alphabet. I also use it to introduce the cursive letter “f.” I don’t use the extra font card with young toddlers, but it’s great for preschoolers on up. The font card is from our Montessori-Inspired Farm Pack (subscriber freebie).

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 pencil. I often do that. For a toddler or young preschooler who’s not ready to write letters, you can just leave off the crayon or pencil as I did for this tray.

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

Montessori-Inspired Farm Vocabulary and Sticker Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Toddler Cousins Placing Farm Stickers on Do-a-Dot Farm Page

Toddler Cousins Placing Farm Stickers on Do-a-Dot Farm Page

Here are my two toddler grandchildren, Sophia at 22 months, and Caleb at 19 months, during their toddler school. My daughter, Christina, and her husband, Tom, have “toddler school” for Caleb and Sophia four mornings each week. They do lots of practical life activities,  sensory activities, outdoor time, music, vocabulary, Spanish and sign language, story time, and open-ended play. They use the do-a-dot printables for vocabulary, hearing the beginning sound of a word, and fine-motor skills.

When using stickers with our do-a-dot pages, I often use ¾” dot stickers. This time I found some cute farm stickers. If you find stickers that fit on the bottom of Hershey’s Kisses, they’ll typically be the right size for the do-a-dot printables.

With toddlers, I like to do some vocabulary work. Using the 3-period lesson, you can focus on the word “farm.” You can use farm animals from your other activities for additional vocabulary work. You could also use more photographs and books to teach about farms.

After the vocabulary focus, you could casually say that farm starts with /f/ (the sound, not the letter name). This is just to introduce hearing the phonetic sound. I don’t focus on the letter “f,” although I use the printable that we already have available. We often focus on the child hearing the beginning sound by saying something like, “Farm,” /f/, “farm.”

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

I don’t worry at all about whether toddlers put the stickers exactly on the dots or whether they complete the page. It’s fun to watch Sophia and Caleb get more exact in their do-a-dot work as they grow and progress!

As always, adapt your presentations for your unique child!

More Farm Resources

Farm Set with Barn and Animals on AmazonFree Farm Printables and Activities for a Montessori-Inspired Farm Unit

Free Farm Printables and Activities for a Montessori-Inspired Farm Unit

MONTESSORI-INSPIRED PACKS – SUBSCRIBER FREEBIES

Montessori-Inspired Farm Pack

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.

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