Alphabet Soup Sensory Activity

Learning letters? Try this Alphabet Soup Sensory activity.

Holy moly, a hands-on way to practice letters? Sign me up for this Alphabet Soup Sensory activity ASAP. Let’s have kids playing with their letters in a meaningful way…

RELATED: Wonder how I teach my kids? Check out PLAYING PRESCHOOL: my 190 days activities program.

Why teach letters this way?

BECAUSE (she says loud and dramatic) we want kids to build meaningful relationships with letters not just memorize how they look on a flashcard or worksheet.

We want to make letters something fun – a toy they can play with – rather than this end all, be all of early childhood education that it’s become.

Trust me: letters are awesome, but knowing them early is NOT an indication of future success.

It’s still great for kids to interact, engage, and grow with letters but we can do that in a fun, play-based, low stress sort of way.

RELATED: Worried about your child and the ABCs? You don’t have to be!

Set down the flashcards…pick up the sensory bin

Instead of working with our kids to memorize and regurgitate the names of some symbols (yikes, that sounds harsh!), we can have them PLAYING and ENGAGING with these letters.

We can help them see the FUN of letters.

Let’s give our bright kids some hands-on learning fun.

Here’s how you make Alphabet Soup Sensory

Materials:

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• Alphabet magnets
• Scoop (this is what we used)
• Old cookie sheet OR Dollar store sheet (see below for options)
• Sharpie marker

THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO SET UP THIS ACTIVITY. Here’s how I did it (next, I’ll give you a great option).

I splurged (wink wink) and bought myself a dollar store cookie sheet to write letters on. This is REUSABLE. Whenever I want my daughter (4) to do an activity with letter magnets, I have my dollar store cookie sheet at the ready.

THE OTHER OPTION…

Use your regular cookie sheet and ERASE the Sharpie at the end. Yes, it works…but test it first. This method works on my normal cookie sheets but NOT on this cheap Dollar Store version.

To erase the Sharpie, squirt a bunch of hand sanitizer on the cookie sheet and use the rough side of a sponge to clean it off. You can also use rubbing alcohol.

Here’s a post about it so you know I’m not lying.

Toss those magnets into water…

Once I had our ABC cookie sheet ready, I tossed the magnets into a small container of water.

Under the container, I put a towel to catch any spills.

RELATED: You can learn more about how to teach kids to play with sensory bins and keep them tidy HERE.

For a little extra fine motor skills fun, I added the tiny scoop for “fishing” out the letters.

We left this activity out for TWO DAYS

The mark of a good activity is how long I can leave it out for…

This activity stayed active for TWO DAYS in my house with all my kids (2, 4, 6) taking a go at it.

My two-year-old isn’t there yet with his letters so for him it is a straight matching objects activity and helps him get familiar with the shape of each letter.

Setting up the alphabet soup sensory activity is so easy

And it’s a great way to get kids interacting with their letters. We want kids moving with their learning, not just staring at flat letters on paper.

Let’s make some alphabet soup sensory and let kids learn with play.