• Rabbit - let the children draw rabbits - add a cotton ball tail - read
Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow, The Tale of Peter
Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams 
  
 • Teach the songs "Little Cabin in the Woods", "Rabbit Aint Got", and
"Little Peter Rabbit"
  
 • Radish - Help the children plant radish seeds in milk cartons - they grow
fast!
  
 • Cut radishes in half with a sharp knife.   Give each child a plastic lid
filled with red tempra paint.  Have each child draw a large letter R with a
red crayon - dip the radish halves in red paint and use them to rubber stamp
along the crayon line to make a Radish R
  
 • Radio - listen to a radio during quiet time - help the children list the
different radio programs - ie - weather, public announcments, news, music,
talk show, call in. etc.. Have them draw a simple picture of a radio.
  
 • Raisin - Make rice and raisin pudding
  
 • glue raisins in the shape of an R
  
 • Read - Set up a reading center - feature books with R words in the title
(I have a list if you need one) Be sure to put in some Ranger Rick magazines
  
 • Write a letter home encouraging parents to read to their children this
week.
  
 •Reindeer
 Trace each of the children's hands for antlers, cut a large triangle for the
head. The children can glue the hand antlers on the top, a red fingerprint
nose and two black thumb print eyes.
 
 •Robots
 Have the children move around the room as robots. Give them commands like
"stop", "go", "sit", etc.. 
 
 •Raisins
 Serve a small cup of raisins. You could add to apple sauce. 
 
 •Rabbits
 Paper plate rabbits:
 we used a small white paper plate and a large white paper plate.  Glued the
face parts, ie. nose, whiskers, eyes, nose, ears to the small paper plate.
 Then we glued on a tail feet to the large paper plate.  Then we glued both
together.  Voila, cute and very individual rabbits!
 
 •Sock rabbits:
 we collected a used white sock from each child and stuffed it with stuffing.
 Then we glued on ears, nose, and eyes.  We let the children use permanent
pens to make the  whiskers.  We also tied off the end of the sock to make a
tail.
 
 •Matching:
 We used rabbit erasers, from Oriental Trading catalog, to sort and count.
 We took plastic eggs and wrote numerals 1 - 10 on them.  Then they placed
the correct amount of rabbits in the eggs.
 
 •Color the letter R and then glue on rice
  
 •with an outline of a rainbow we will color in the different colors 
  
 •painting with the color Red
  
 • make robots using various collage materials
  
 •make raindrop people
  
 •other ideas - color rice in different colors, put rice in ziploc bags, add
a few drops of food coloring and shake, use to make pictures on tagboard or
constuction paper
 
 •R is for rectangle....make rectangle collages  include big and little
rectangles, thin and fat rectangles.  
  
 • R is for rain...  cut out an umbrella shapes and let the children sponge
paint raindrop shapes with various colors of blue     Sing "It's Raining It's
Pouring"  
  
 • R is for rabbit....make rabbit ear head bands and give the children cotton
ball tails and pretend to be rabbits for a day   Look at the See How They
Grow--Rabbits Book
  
 • R is for rocks....gather rocks and put in a plastic tub, let children
classify rocks into sizes  (big, medium and small) on to a big piece of
paper, a medium piece of paper or a small piece of paper with the
corresponding words written on each size paper
  
 • R is for red....have a red day and everyone wear red Read the book Red is
Best
  
 • R is for records....if you're lucky enough to be able to get a hold of an
old children's record player and records, let children operate independently
in a listening corner
  
 • R is for run...have relay races
 
 •Letter r- cut an r out of strong paper and let the children glue on "r"ice
 
 •make rainbows. I cut a paper plate in a rainbow shape(one plate 
  makes two rainbows.) The children glued colored yarn, colored sticks, 
  or colored the rainbow colors onto the plate. They used the color 
  sequence of a real rainbow. I read Don Freeman's A Rainbow of my Own. 
  We also collected rocks, used them to write our names, sorted them, 
  and tried to balance them on the scale. On the playground, we played 
  Red Rover.
 
 • Today, a simple project turned into something very beautiful.  We read the
story The Rainbow Fish, and then cut a large fish shape out of white
construction paper.  Then we used watercolor paints, talked about what colors
were in the rainbow, and then the kids painted their fish.  They were
beautiful  When they dried, some children wanted to put aluminum foil on the
fish to make the Rainbow Fish's beautiful scales.  These were wonderful!  
  
 
 
 *Also see ideas in these files: Themes, Library Extenders, Any Day /Everyday
Activities, and Dramatic Play/Prop Boxes for more activities that may start
with your focus letter.