What is one of the most focused on skills in our children’s primary years? Learning the alphabet, of course! To some kids, learning the ABC’s just comes natural. Take my oldest, for instance; he was naturally curious about the alphabet. He did our ABC puzzles on a daily basis and knew all of his letters before he was 2 (I know!). This is definitely not the case for most littles though (nor should it be!). This is a big skill that takes a lot of practice to master. However, it’s also an extremely important skill to master since it is the foundation for reading. So what do you do if your cutie just isn’t interested in memorizing their ABC’s?
You play with the letters, of course! And since my kiddos love sensory bins so much, I decided to create a bin centered around letters! This sensory bin is all about playing with the letters in a way that my middle child can connect to and enjoy. He is not the type of kid to sit down and do an alphabet puzzle, but he does love splashing in water and cleaning things! So I went ahead and grabbed our cookie letters (these things are amazing, by the way!) and set up a washing station.
Click here if your littles love sensory play too!
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Materials
- Sensory bin
- Cookie letters
- Baby soap container
- Scrubbers, brushes and sponges
- Wash cloths
- Towels for drying
Let me just talk about these cookie letters for a moment. They came in a cookie jar and are actually meant to be a game. Although we occasionally use the actual game, they are most used as cookies in our play kitchen. My kids spend hours ‘cooking them’ and serving them up for one another. It is so much fun to watch! I just love toys that you can use in a variety of ways. Upon receiving these cookies, I didn’t envision them ending up in the play kitchen (or the sensory bin, for that matter!). I always thought we would use them as a game and keep it at that. Thanks to my kiddos’ wonderful imaginations, they have become so much more than just a game! And my favorite thing about these awesome letters? They are all lowercase! It’s not often that you find a toy with lowercase letters, let alone one with only lowercase letters! As a Kindergarten teacher, I would much rather have my kiddos be exposed to lowercase letters than uppercase letters. That may sound crazy, but think about it…when you read a book, most of the letters are lowercase, right? Heck, even this blog post is composed of mainly lowercase letters! We just don’t live in a world where WE WRITE IN ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS. So it seems silly to me to focus on uppercase letters with our kids. I’ll save my letter rant for another post though! But that, my friends, is why these cookies are so amazing!
Let Them Play!
My middle sweetie was ecstatic when he saw this sensory set up. He ran right over, saw the water, and was immediately rolling up his sleeves ready to dive in to play! Both kiddos got to work getting the cookies into their ‘bath’ and it gave me a chance to add some questioning to the activity. I asked my kiddos about the letter names, the letter sounds, and even the colors of the cookies. We found letter matches and discovered that some cookies can be a different letter when flipped upside down!
This sensory bin did exactly what I hoped it would do. It got my kiddos playing with the letters and looking at them in a new way. They were able to explore different aspects of each letter and have fun while they did it. Even my oldest was challenged with letter sounds during our play! And what’s better? My letters got cleaned, haha! I’m going to have to start doing a washing sensory bin with all of our toys to get them clean!
Although I used our cookie letters for this activity, you can use whatever you have at home. Magnetic letters, foam bath letters, even some puzzle letters! Just be sure that whatever you choose can be fully submerged in water and won’t rot or fall apart when it gets wet. Because it will get wet!
Once you’ve chosen your letters, you just need to add soap and cleaning supplies. I strongly suggest using baby soap so it won’t sting your sweeties if they get a little in their eyes. I saved one of our basically empty soap bottles from bath time, added water about half way, and then gave it a good shake! The kids were thrilled to get to use the pump soap and spent a good part of our playtime just pumping soap (great for hand strength)! As far as the cleaning supplies go, you definitely don’t need anything fancy. I grabbed our Mickey scrubber we got as a wedding gift and keep as a decoration because it’s too cute to scrub yucky dishes! I also grabbed a fresh sponge used for our scrubbing brush and a few wash cloths my kiddos use during bath time. That was it!
This activity was a hit with my kiddos! I think they would have played with it all day if I let them. When it gets warmer outside, we just might have to make it an all day outdoor activity! So, grab your sensory bin, add the letters and soap, and then watch the magic as your littles are engaged in the alphabet!
Looking for another fun way to play with the alphabet? Check out our Paw Patrol ABC Puzzle Rescue Activity!
