3 Sites that Offer Free Alphabet Printables for Preschoolers

School districts across the country are short on funding, so free alphabet printables for preschoolers can be a valuable addition to any teacher’s inventory. The preschool years are the ideal time for children to learn the basics, such as the shape and sound of letters in the alphabet. Posting colorful posters with each letter or giving children copies to color and decorate are great ways to reinforce alphabet lessons. Some teachers may resort to scanning and copying coloring books for their resource materials, but these sites offer high quality alphabet pictures with recognizable items children will readily identify with.

Disney Alphabet Printables

The Disney Family website is a treasure trove of craft ideas, recipes and usable tips for parents and teachers alike. Disney characters are so familiar with preschool children that referring to them in a learning environment seems natural. It’s the rare child who doesn’t recognize Mickey Mouse or even Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

This site offers a set of full-color alphabet printables, each showcasing a Disney character to demonstrate the sound of each letter. The set offers a mixture of classic and contemporary cartoons, from M for Mickey and P for Pluto to S for Stitch and I for the Incredibles. The colorful illustrations print out two to a page in their original size, making them ideal for a small book or bulletin board decorations.

First School

First School is a site dedicated to helping homeschoolers and teachers with students in preschool and kindergarten.They offer a mass of lesson plans, class ideas, activities, worksheets, printables and other items to help idea-strapped teachers. The site is free, and teachers may copy and use any item or project available.

First School offers a number of alphabet handwriting worksheets, which teachers can print out and use in alphabet recognition classes, as well as lessons on handwriting. Some of the worksheets and corresponding activity programs are available in English,  as well as Spanish, versions. In addition to the basic alphabet worksheets, teachers can also print out class decorations with alphabet trains, alphabet dinosaurs and even sets of alphabet flash cards.

Nick Jr.

When it comes to television programming with a learning perspective, few networks offer as much for teachers and parents as Nick Jr. With programming such as Dora the Explorer, Diego, Blue’s Clues and the Bubble Guppies, Nick Jr. includes favorites that children will watch for years. All kids learn faster when they’re interested, and adding their favorite characters to a reading lesson is a way to tap into this focus.

Taking advantage of this fact, Nick Jr. offers a number of free alphabet printables for preschoolers. Little ones can learn the shapes of letters with the Bubble Guppies’ letter tracing sheets. Dora’s ABC Connect the Dots and Dora’s Letter Trail teach children their alphabet while giving them a fun puzzle to solve. Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues both have special printable writing paper for practicing writing letters, and parents can even print out a kit for getting children ready for kindergarten, produced in conjunction with the National PTA.