Letter Magnets – Activities For Preschool and Kindergarten

Letter magnets are my favorite low-cost tool for my preschool classroom. Letter magnets are great for so many different activities, some simple, some that need more preparation. Playing with letters is in my experience one of the best ways to prepare children for the more targetted early literacy activities. Start with play. Many of these activities are geared towards children who have already shown great interest in letters, in how they work, and why we use them. Make sure that you carefully choose which activity to use for the child or group you are working with – it should strike just the right balance of challenge and fun!

You can find my favorite letter magnets on Amazon with this affiliate link. 

 

Letter Match with Letter Magnets 

Using a dollar store cookie sheet and a permanent marker, write out the alphabet on the sheet. Give your child a bowl full of the magnets and have him match them up! You can also use this FREE printable if you don’t want to mark up a cookie sheet. Letter Matching 

Sight Word Match with Magnetic Letters 

This activity is an excellent use for magnetic letters for children ready for sight words. Read the how-to here.

 

Missing Letters and Building Words with Letter Magnets 

Write out simple words leaving one letter out. Pop them on your fridge, and have your child fill in the blank with the magnetic letters. In a class doing this activity with the alphabet is super fun. Sing it and STOP when there is a missing letter than invite a kiddo up to the board to fill in the gap.

 

You can also build words working with word families. This activity is always a big hit with emergent readers. See how it’s done here –> word building 

Color Sorting with Letter Magnets 

I love this activity with my 2 and 3-year-olds because they are confident about colors walking into my class but are just starting to get excited about letters. You can do this with a tray like this

Or on a magnet board like rainbow activity. 

You can even work in themes! Check out how I used these letter magnets around the holidays in my preschool class. See how I used this letter magnet activity in my classroom here. 

 

Letter Magnets in The Sensory Bin 

Add magnetic letters into your sensory bin for students to discover letters while exploring with their other senses. Check out how I made this one here. 

Letter Magnet Scavenger Hunts

Hide the letters all over the house or your classroom and go on a hunt!

Circle Time Lessons with Magnetic Letters

I love this alphabet soup lesson, and so did my students. They gobbled this one up! See how I did it here. 

Use letter magnets with these FREE printables to work on letter-sound matching. This pack comes with all kinds of sounds. 

These letter sound printables are all animal names. Print them for free here.