Free · print at home · ages 3 to 5
Letter U worksheets and tracing
A little cup shape, curled up snug under the umbrella.
“Snug. Quiet. Hidden. It's u!”
Watch it write itself
See u 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 U 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 u and U, 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 u
- Start at the green dot on the middle line. Go down, round the bottom, and up the right side to the middle line.
- Dot 2, at the top of the right side: go straight down to the base line.
Capital U
- Start at the green dot on the top line. Go straight down, round the bottom, and straight up to the top line.
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Letter U tracing worksheets and coloring page
Five sheets for U and u: tracing the capital and the small letter, the small u only, the capital U only, a coloring page and a find every u page. US Letter and A4, black and white first, then color.
Letter U u tracing worksheet
U and u on the road with arrows, then fainter, then from the dots alone. Then the word umbrella.
1 page · PDF
Small u only
Four rows of u, from the road to the dots alone. Then the word umbrella.
1 page · PDF
Capital U only
Four rows of U, from the road to the dots alone, and a line to write on.
1 page · PDF
Letter U coloring page
A big U and u with eyes to color, and a box to draw the umbrella it hides in.
1 page · PDF · black and white
Find every u
A page of letters, many of them look-alikes. Color every u, 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 U
Everyday things a child can carry to school for letter U day. The first one is where u hides in our book.
- ukulelea toy one
- unicorna stuffed one
- uniformfrom a team or a club
- UFOa toy one
- unicyclea toy one
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: inside the closed umbrella, or anywhere under something (under starts with u too).
- Say the sound together, as the book does: “u, u, u... Where can u be?” When your child finds it, they trace it with a finger and shout “Got you, little u!”
Animals
Animals that start with U
Not many animals start with u, and most of these live far away. Every one of them is real.
- uakaria monkey with a bright red face
- umbrellabirda bird with a crest like an umbrella
- unicornfisha reef fish with a horn on its forehead
- uriala wild sheep from Asia
- Ural owla big gray owl from the forests of Europe and Asia
- upland sandpipera bird of the North American grasslands
- Uinta ground squirrelfrom the Rocky Mountains
- urchinthe sea urchin, a spiny ball that lives in the sea
Good to know
Uh, or you?
u has two sounds at the start of a word. It says uh in umbrella, up and under, and it says its own name, you, in unicorn, uniform and ukulele.
The book's u is the short one, as in umbrella: u, u, u. For the hiding game, under is the perfect word: under the bed, under the table, under the umbrella.
Questions
Grown-ups ask
- How do you write a lowercase u?
- Start on the middle line, go down, round the bottom and up the right side to the middle line. Then start again at the top of the right side and go straight down to the base line.
- Is a unicorn an animal that starts with U?
- Only in stories! Unicorns aren't real. Two real ones to try: the uakari, a monkey with a bright red face, and the umbrellabird, with a crest like an umbrella.
- What starts with U for show and tell?
- An umbrella (where u hides in our book), a toy ukulele, a stuffed unicorn, a team uniform or a toy UFO. U is a hard letter, so a short list is fine.
More letters
Our own book
Catch the Letters! A Bedtime Alphabet Book
By Katia Sunn · for grown-ups · coming soon
In the book, u hides in the umbrella. 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.