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I shared this post years ago, when my children were young. I love looking back at the fun things we did to fill our days as I taught my kids the alphabet! I highly recommend doing sensory, art, and fine motor activities with your preschooler simply because it’s fun. These activities also provide opportunities to develop oral language and other early literacy skills. However, please note that research tells us that direct instruction in letters and sounds is the most efficient way to teach and learn the alphabet.
We’ve just launched our first letter exploration! We started with the letter E because it is one of the easiest letters to form. Find out what we did with this simple sensory bin for letter E.
Here are the things we came up with:
- letter E stamps
- toy elephants
- envelope
- egg (play food)
- eight (puzzle piece)
- plastic Easter egg
- toy eagle
- eyes (Mr. Potato Head’s)
- ear (Mr. Potato Head’s)
- envelope
- Elmo figurine
- Eeyore figurine
- wooden E block
- deer (whoops – my 2-year-old slipped that one in)
Then we poured dry rice and beans over everything. Now it was time to dig the items out.
At first my little guy used his hands.
Then he decided that a spoon would work better.
I helped my older son sort all the items by their beginning sound: long e and short e.
We had a few oddballs: eye and eight.
Cleaning up is learning too!
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You May Also Enjoy These Posts:
Ways to Make the Letter ALetter W Activities for 2-year-oldsAnother free beginning sounds learning center — set 3!
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Reader Interactions
11 Comments
Alanna
Thank you so much for your site. It’s very helpful homeschooling my kindergarten son, who has to stay home for medical reasons!
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Anna G
I’m so glad that my site is helping you with your kindergartner, Alanna!
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Chelsea
I recently had a parent teacher meeting for my son at school. They did testing on how well the kids can sound out words like bat, cup ect. They were able to get max 50 and he received a 26. This obviously worried me so I asked why he got so low. When they tested them they did it with all the other kids in the classroom so when they asked him to sound out cup, he didnt pronounce c or the p. When i did this with him one on one at home he was able to do it. I think that using some of this and reteaching the letters would help. Any ideas on which ones to use?
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Anna Geiger
HI Chelsea! Is the problem that he he’s not sure of all his letter sounds? What grade is he in?
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I am SO happy I found your site!! I am new to this whole homeschooling thing and I feel like I’m failing miserably. Mostly I’ve noticed that my three year old is having letter and number recognition problems and these activities are perfect!! I kow hes not necesaarily behind I think I was going at it all wrong, i am going to try and make it more about the fun and less about the letters themselves. Thank you!!!
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Anna Geiger
Hi Tracy! Thanks so much for your comment. I know how easy it is to get stressed about what our little ones are (or are not) learning. I have to say I’ve lightened up as I’ve had more kids… out of necessity, I think! You’re right that for a 3-year-old it has to be more about the fun. It’s amazing how many playful ways there are to learn letters, counting, etc. — without traditional worksheets. I hope you keep finding things here to make your homeschooling journey easier. I had fun visiting your site!
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Nurah
looks fun. Intend to do also.
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annageig
Hi Kristin!
Yes, I save the rice and beans for future sensory boxes. I used these for Farm in a Box (https://www.themeasuredmom.com/farm-in-a-box-letter-f-sensory-bin/). They would also work well for Letter Alphabet Hunt & Match (https://www.themeasuredmom.com/letter-hunt-match-a-whole-alphabet-activity-for-toddlers-preschoolers/).
One thing that doing sensory boxes has taught me is to hang on to little trinkets and things that I’d otherwise throw away. They can come in handy for things like this!Reply to this comment
KRISTIN
I need more E toys! I don’t think we have most of these things (as toys). Did you keep the rice and beans for another activity?
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