Words That Start With P For Kids

Our P words list for preschool emphasizes simple phonics and ideas your youngest learners will be able to grasp. Clear, concrete images and concepts form the foundation of your youngest students' linguistic development. Use these P words for kids in your classroom activities and Dolch sight word practice.

• Pal: Friend
• Pan: Flat cooking vessel
• Pass: To move past or to hand over
• Pat: To touch comfortingly with your hand
• Paw: The hand or foot of an animal, usually a mammal
• Pea: A small round green vegetable
• Pen: A tool for writing with ink
• Pet: An animal that lives with humans
• Pig: A farm animal that says "oink"
• Pit: Deep hole
• Pop: A loud, explosive sound
• Pot: Deep cooking vessel
• Pup: A young dog

At this age level, an interdisciplinary approach works best. When you're brainstorming letter P activities, be sure to make time for students to draw or trace letters and words, even before they're able to write. Those vivid images and the feel of shaping the symbols will provide the all-important sensory connection that makes literacy happen. We've developed a trace-the-letter activity with that in mind.

After practicing three-letter words for kids, young readers might be ready for more complex words and spellings. Keep the practice going in kindergarten with these longer P words for kids.

• Pack: To prepare your things before a trip
• Pail: Bucket
• Pair: Two of something
• Pale: Light-colored, fair
• Paper: Flat material made from wood, used for writing and drawing
• Pare: Trim down, usually with a knife
• Part: One piece of a larger whole
• Path: A track or way to walk
• Pay: To give money for something
• Pear: A sweet, wide-bottomed fruit
• Pencil: A wooden writing utensil with lead
• Pest: Something bothersome, especially an insect or other animal
• Pick: To choose
• Pine: A type of evergreen tree with needles and seed cones
• Plan: An idea for how something should go
• Play: To engage in an activity for fun
• Point: To indicate with your finger or an object
• Poke: To jab at, usually with a finger
• Pond: A small body of still water
• Pose: Position, especially of a person's body

If kindergartners could use a little extra practice matching P words with images, pass out a handy printable. It includes six common P words and encourages learners to draw a line between them and the cute colorable pictures.

First grade is often the beginning of literacy. Sticking with concrete concepts helps early learners understand the process of reading. Keep the lessons going in first, second and third grade with these things that start with P.

• Page: A paper in a book
• Paint: Colored pigments used to make pictures
• Palm: Flat inside part of your hand
• Panda: A black-and-white bear native to China
• Pant: To breathe quickly, especially in animals
• Parent: A mother or father in the family
• Parrot: A brightly colored bird that can imitate human speech
• Party: Gathering of people
• Peace: Not fighting, getting along
• Peach: A soft tree fruit with a pit in the middle
• Pearl: A gemstone made by oysters
• Pebble: A small stone
• Pecan: A tree nut used in pies and other pastries
• Person: An individual human
• Photograph: A paper image taken with a camera
• Piano: A large keyboard instrument
• Picnic: An outdoor meal
• Pilot: Person who flies an airplane or other vehicle
• Plate: A flat dish for serving food
• Please: What you say when asking for something politely, or to make someone happy
• Ploy: A scheme, a plan
• Poem: A written work that follows a rhythm, rhyme scheme or other set structure
• Pour: To make liquid flow out of something
• Predator: An animal hunting another animal
• Prey: An animal being hunted by another animal
• Print: To make a paper copy of a document

Join these words up for active, kinetic classroom activities. Cut out paper pears and let your students pay for them with Monopoly money. Draw and decorate a pine tree as a group. As for pest, we can only offer sympathy. But being active and creative with words, especially just as they're being understood for the first time, is vital to establishing lifelong active literacy.

Engage your students in one another's learning. Make flashcards with a P word on one side and the definition on the other. That sense of active comprehension, of being involved with the learning process, is a fundamental part of retention and linguistic development. You can use this template or make your own.

Fourth grade is the point at which we introduce the larger context of a word, including its origin, its connotations and its use in larger written works. It's also a great time to focus on the "ph" digraph. Use a variety of P words for kids in classroom activities and teaching strategies.

• Palace: Where a member of royalty lives
• Papaya: A tropical fruit
• Parade: A procession of musicians, dancers and floats down a street
• Pardon: To excuse or forgive someone
• Parlor: A formal room to entertain guests
• Partner: Someone you work or live with
• Passionate: To feel strongly about something
• Passive: Allowing others to make decisions
• Patrol: To watch over and keep safe
• People: More than one person
• Perish: To die or end
• Permit: To allow, or a document that allows you to do something
• Personal: Having to do with one person, not for the public
• Phase: A step or period of time
• Phrase: An expression or collection of words
• Phony: Fake or pretend
• Pigeon: A type of bird related to a dove
• Pillow: A soft piece of bedding to rest your head on
• Pizza: An Italian dish made with dough, sauce and cheese
• Plank: Flat piece of wood
• Platform: A flat surface raised above the ground, usually to stand on
• Portrait: Painting of a person
• Prim: Precise, formal
• Primary: First or before others
• Prime: First, best or most important
• Private: Not public, something alone or with only a few people
• Privet: A thick bushy plant used for hedges
• Promote: To encourage or to contribute to the growth of something
• Pulse: The heartbeat felt in your wrist or neck

Once upper elementary students have a precise knowledge of words that begin with P, they can use their vocabulary for kindness. Have members of the class write personal letters or cards to friends or family members using these positive words that start with P. It's a great activity for class birthdays, Valentine's Day or whenever you're teaching a friendly letter format.

Encourage your students to see how many of these words they can fit in one readable paragraph or even one readable sentence. Assign words or let them pick from a hat, then let them write stories. Based on the type of writing you are teaching, you can choose from a number of elementary writing prompts.

For a simple sound, P is surprisingly important to language and learning. Vocabulary lessons like this are vital for kids to make the all-important shift from making noise to making meaning.

Now that you've got a start to your vocabulary list, use WordFinder to build it up even more. Fill out the advanced search fields on WordFinder's list of words that start with P to find simple or complex words to review. You can even sort for words that include or end with P if desired. For more enriching vocabulary and etymology, take a look at these words that start with q. You'll solve those quirky queries quite quickly!