Free · print at home · ages 3 to 5
Letter Q worksheets and tracing
The quietest letter, hiding under the quilt, with a tail that gives it away.
“There is q, hiding as quietly as possible.”
Watch it write itself
See q write itself
It starts at the green dot and goes the way the arrows go, in the same order your child traces it. Press Slowly and follow it with a finger.
Tap Q to see the capital write itself too.
On a phone or tablet, Bring it into your room puts the letter on your floor or table, through the camera. No app to install.
How to write it
How to write q and Q, in words
One line for each stroke, to read aloud while your child traces. On the sheets: the top line, the dashed middle line, and the base line, where the letters sit. If your child's school uses a different style, follow the school.
Small q
- Start at the green dot, just under the middle line on the right. Go up and round to the left, down to the base line, and back up to the dot, as for a.
- Dot 2: go straight down the right side, past the base line, to the line below. No hook at the bottom.
Capital Q
- Start at the green dot on the top line, in the middle. Go round to the left, down to the base line, round the bottom and up the right side, back to the dot, as for O.
- Dot 2, inside the circle near the bottom: slant a short line down to the right, out across the circle, a little past the base line.
Print · free, no sign-up
Letter Q tracing worksheets and coloring page
Five sheets for Q and q: tracing the capital and the small letter, the small q only, the capital Q only, a coloring page and a find every q page. US Letter and A4, black and white first, then color.
Letter Q q tracing worksheet
Q and q on the road with arrows, then fainter, then from the dots alone. Then the word quilt.
1 page · PDF
Small q only
Four rows of q, from the road to the dots alone. Then the word quilt.
1 page · PDF
Capital Q only
Four rows of Q, from the road to the dots alone, and a line to write on.
1 page · PDF
Letter Q coloring page
A big Q and q with eyes to color, and a box to draw the quilt it hides in.
1 page · PDF · black and white
Find every q
A page of letters, many of them look-alikes. Color every q, then count them. The answer is upside down.
1 page · PDF · black and white
Free for home and classroom use. To pass them on, please share the link to this page and not the file. The whole alphabet at once (the ABC chart, the A to Z tracing booklet and the desk strip) is on the alphabet page.
For show and tell
Things that start with Q
Everyday things a child can carry to school for letter Q day. The first one is where q hides in our book.
- quarter
- queena playing card or a chess piece
- quartza small, shiny stone
- quilla feather pen
- question markdrawn big on a card
- quizthree questions for the class
- quesadillain the lunchbox
The book's game, with no screen
- Print the letter. The coloring page works well: your child colors it first, then it goes into hiding.
- While nobody is looking, hide it in something that starts with its sound: under the quilt, or in a quiet corner of the room.
- Say the sound together, as the book does: “q, q, q... Where can q be?” When your child finds it, they trace it with a finger and shout “Got you, little q!”
Animals
Animals that start with Q
Tap one with an arrow to meet it on our dinosaur pages.
- quail
- quokkaa small animal from Australia that looks like it is smiling
- quetzala bright green bird from Central America
- quolla spotted animal from Australia
- queen angelfisha blue and yellow fish from coral reefs
- queen beethe bee that lays the eggs in a hive
- quahoga clam from the Atlantic coast of North America
- Quetzalcoatlusthe biggest animal that ever flew, a reptile but not a dinosaur
Good to know
q nearly always brings u
Look at q in words: queen, quilt, quiet, quick, quack. Almost every time, u comes right after it, and together they sound like kw.
Only a few words break the rule, and most of them come from other languages.
In our book, q is the quietest letter of all, hiding under the quilt. You only spot it by its little tail.
Questions
Grown-ups ask
- How do you write a lowercase q?
- Make a circle the way you start an a. Then go straight down the right side, past the base line, to the line below. No hook at the bottom: a hook to the left would make it a g.
- Why does q nearly always come with u?
- It's an old spelling habit that English took from French and Latin, and it stuck. For a child, the useful part is simple: when you see qu, say kw, as in queen and quilt.
- What starts with Q for show and tell?
- A quarter, a queen from a deck of cards, a feather quill, a big question mark on a card, or a quiz with three questions for the class. And a doll's quilt, for our book: that's where q hides.
More letters
Our own book
Catch the Letters! A Bedtime Alphabet Book
By Katia Sunn · for grown-ups · coming soon
In the book, q hides in the quilt. Your child finds it, traces it with a finger, and catches it. Every letter hides somewhere in the house, inside a thing that starts with its sound.
Every letter page has a code: scan it with a phone or tablet and the letter comes into your room.