Overview
The children will help Leo the Lion look for his letter L lunch as they recognize and name the uppercase letter L and the lowercase letter l .

Literacy Activities
Look for the letter L

• Write the uppercase letter L and the lowercase letter l on a whiteboard, name the letters, and have the children write the L and l in the air with their fingers.
• Place the letter cards around the room.
• Tell the children to look for the letter L as they gather the letter cards.
• Help the children decide whether or not each letter is an uppercase letter L or a lowercase letter l.
  • If the letter is an L or an l, have the children give the card to Leo Lion and have them say “Leo Lion loves L!”
  • If the letter is not an L or an l, have the children place it in the discard pile.
  • If a child misidentifies a distractor letter as an L or an l, have him or her look at the L and l on the whiteboard and compare them to the letter he or she picked.

Look for Leo Lion’s lunch

• Read the book, Would They Love a Lion? by Kady MacDonald Denton or The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney to the children and have them look for the letter L in the book (optional).
• Place the picture cards around the room.
• Allow the children to look around the room to find pictures for Leo Lion’s lunch.
• Have the children put the pictures they find in a lunch sack (e.g., paper bag).
• Once the children have found all of the lunch items, let each child circle the lowercase letter l in the word on each picture card.
• Let the children pretend to feed the lunch items to the Leo Lion puppet and have the children say “Leo Lion loves L!” each time they feed the lion.

More Practice
Identify the target letter

• Write the uppercase letter L and the lowercase letter l on the board and have the children name the letter.
• Make a list of everything that Leo Lion had for lunch.
• Have the children circle the lowercase letter l in each word from the list.

Write the target letter

• Help the children write the uppercase letter L and lowercase l on sticky notes or small pieces of paper.
• Instruct the children to place their papers on Leo Lion and have them say “Leo Lion loves L!” each time they place a paper.