The Letter "O" Activities

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I need to be doing more activities with my younger kids to get my 4 year old ready for preschool next year.  I have been looking for ideas on the internet to see what there is, and I have come up with some activities soon to come.  The activities will probably be random...ranging from letters of the alphabet to numbers to shapes and so on. 
Today I started with the letter "O".  I printed off this "O" worksheet from HERE.

I talked to my kids about the short o sound and talked about the 4 pictures from the bottom of the page.  The kids then colored the pictures, cut out the squares (with help from me) and glued them to a piece of paper.  Then they practiced writing the letter "O".

Next we made our snack.  We had octopus (using hotdogs and spaghetti noodles).  This is the before: 

I cut a couple hotdogs into 1/3 pieces and then broke a handful of uncooked spaghetti noodles in half.  First I talked to the kids about how many legs people have, then how many legs dogs have and then we talked about how octopuses have 8 legs.  I gave my kids the noodles and let them slide the noodles through the hotdog slices. 

Then they helped me drop the octopus into the water (just like where they live!)  After about 10 minutes, we had our snack of octopus and orange juice served in an orange cup.  I personally wasn't tempted to dive into today's snack, but my kids sure thought it was yummy.  If only I could make vegetables look as fun! 

(I saw the octopus idea at Plum Pudding.)
I ended our "O" day by reading the book The Great Swimming Race (By:  Ann Bryant and Peter Kavanagh)  I wanted to read a fun children's book about an octopus and this is what I could find at my local library.  It was an easy read, but after a busy afternoon my kids didn't seem to mind. 

The kids were really entertained and loved all the activities!  I can't wait to do more fun things like this with them!!

Some More O Ideas:
Art Project:
Make an octopus - Cover a small styrofoam ball with cloth and tie it with enough ribbons to make eight legs.

Sport/Game:
Build a simple obstacle course for your child to play on. Another game to play could be to help your child think of opposites. You say the word "off" and your child must reply with "on".

Math:
Octagon - point out the shape in everyday objects such as a stop sign. Draw and color one.

ABC & 123 also has some great finds for the letter "O".