Alphabet activities
Sensory tubs are great for all sorts of learning and you don’t need fancy things to get your kids interested … but it’s so fun to give them a theme! This one is a great one for preschoolers who want to do a little more than scoop and pour. It’s easy enough to simplify using plain rice or beans , only the larger letters and adding cups to fill and spill! Do not feel like you have to be directing your kids while they play with sensory tubs, some kids need it but most do not, just let them play. If they are older and looking for a game to play with it follow our instructions for the letter hunt .
- Gather your materials. For this sensory tub we used a handful of magnetic letters, some huge floor puzzle letters,small foam letters, small letter beads, plain white beans a plastic dish tub , alphabet pasta. If you want to do the letter hunt game, you will also need an ice cube tray and some tongs.
- Start by putting the beans in the tub .
- Next the pasta.
- Now add the letter beads – my son was playing outside and came in to help.
- Next the foam, magnets and jumbo puzzle pieces.
- If you are doing a letter hunt place some letters in your ice tray for your child to find.
- Go for it!
- Found it!
- This was such a big hit that he pulled it back out later that evening.
More Fun with Letters
It’s the process not the product right? Well it definitely was when we made these alphabet cookies. I swore I had cookie cutters but alas when I went to look for them they were MIA so we molded letters instead. The activity was a huge hit and a fun special treat. My son laughed with me when we checked on the cookies and they were unrecognizable. THey were still tasty and we still had fun with letters, so I say it was a success!
- Gather your materials. You will need some cookie dough, a cutting board, knife and pan.
- Start by portioning out the cookie size for your child. Since I was using premade dough I just sliced it.
- Start creating.
- I got my son into making letters by making some and asking him to guess what they were then he made a few of his own.
- We also made extra long ones that my son used the knife to cut to size. He loved this.
- Pop them on a tray.
- Bake – check on them and laugh hysterically – obviously less dough should have been used.
- Luckily the O ( my son’s initial) was still an O after I poked the middle a little and he enjoyed it at snack time!
Have fun with your creative time, take failures in stride and remember it’s the process not the product!
My son loves glue and I fell in love with this post over at Play Activities - yesterday while trying to keep my sanity with a newborn who wouldn’t sleep and a 3 year old who only wanted to play soccer… in the living room, I busted it out. Simple, fun and you can let it dry and use the sheets again. My son really loved it ( thank goodness), oh and it works their fine motor and hand eye coordination too!
- Gather your materials. You will need some paper ( heavy is better so the glue won’t seep through if they use a little too much), a marker and glue.
- Start by writing letters , making shapes , numbers or even just designs.
- Hand them the glue and have them trace.
- If it’s too tricky grab some new paper and make the letters larger.
- Let dry and trace and feel them with your fingers!
Scrap paper , magazines and catalogs all crowd my recycle bin. So today I put them all to work for me and made this recycled alphabet craft using only one piece of paper that hadn’t been rescued from the bin. It’s fun, bright and makes a great long term cooperative art project for young kids. Pull it out when it’s rainy and search for a few letters in a magazine, glue them on and add some more another day. I like projects like these because they teach young kids how be committed to something over more than 20 minutes. Also in classrooms these long term cooperative projects always seemed to be the greatest sources of pride for my students.
- Gather your materials. You will need one large piece of paper, some construction paper scraps, glue, a pen, some magazines/catalogs and scissors.
- Start by cutting your construction paper into squares ( or any other shape)- this just makes a fun frame, you can skip this and simply glue the letters onto the paper too.
- Glue them on. This is a fun way to get your child counting to 26, as well as figuring out how to fit all on one page. If your child is really young I would probably do this before bringing them into the activity, just so their energy is on the letters, not the set up.
- Write the alphabet on the construction paper squares.
- Cut some letters out of the magazines for your child if they need help. I did this for every age group I worked with up until school age. They are still challenged looking for the individual letters but not frustrated by looking for them in magazines that may or may not have what they need. * Tip … auto magazines are great for these activities, because of the abundance of car makes with Z, Q and X letters that are usually a pain to find.
- Start adding the letters on. Go for as long as your child wants. This does not need be be done in one sitting!
- To make it more challenging for older kids have them find only upper or only lowercase letters.
Alphabet Books
ABC of Canada
The Alphabet Tree
The Graphic Alphabet by David Pelletier is a fun book to share with a child who has already mastered the alphabet, because this book is challenging. Each letter is shown in it’s own illustration, but you aren’t sure exactly what the picture is of, this is the challenge. As you can see on the cover it has an avalanche, the hardest one for me was N no matter how I looked at the picture I thought it was of magnets! Turns out it was noodles! Very fun book for kids that already know their letters and are up for a challenge.
Want more Alphabet Crafts? Check out my Alphabet Crafts eBook and you will have a craft for every letter!
