Tag Archives: magnets

Fun Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers

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Buddy has been studying the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom at school recently, so he’s been extra interested in the alphabet. He notices letters around him everywhere! We’re constantly talking about letters and their sounds at our house. We have done a lot of different activities over the last couple of years to help Buddy learn his letters, and I thought I’d write a blog post so they could all be found in one place.

Alphabet Kaboom Game

All of the letters are written on popsicle sticks, along with a few sticks labeled Kaboom! You take turn pulling sticks, and saying the letter. If you pull a Kaboom stick, you have to put back all of your sticks. Whoever has the most sticks at the end of a set amount of time wins. Read more about this activity here.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom STEM Game

The STEM part of this game is to build a strong tree for the letters to climb. Then, you take turns pulling a magnetic letter and putting it on top of the tree. Whoever knocks down the tree loses the game. It’s so much fun! I’d like to play this one again soon. Read more about this game here.

Alphabet Easter Egg Hunt

We did this one at Easter and then again over the summer. I hid eggs that were filled with magnetic letters. Buddy found the letters and matched them to a pan. It’s so easy, and a lot of fun. Both times we did this activity, we had to immediately repeat it. Read more about this activity here.

Serving Letter Cookies

I wrote letters on paper plates, and Buddy scooped up the foam letter “cookie” to match it. We revisited this activity a few weeks ago, and Buddy had so much fun he made me make a plate for every letter! We also enjoyed pretending to eat our cookies. Read more about this activity here.

Magnetic Letters Sensory Bin

Buddy loves sensory bins, and rice sensory bins are his favorite! I hid magnetic letters in rice, and Buddy had to dig through and find all of the letters. The last time we played in the rice bin, Buddy asked me to pull out the letters to throw in the rice because he had so much fun digging for them. Read more about this activity here.

Magnetic Letters Busy Bag

Last summer I put together a tin of magnetic letters and some words to spell. Most of the words were names of family members, but there were a few other simple words in there too. Buddy really enjoyed being able to “read” and spell the names of his family. This was a great activity to keep him busy on long car trips. Read more about the magnetic letter busy bag here.

Floating Letters

I cleaned out the kitchen sink, and then I asked Buddy to find and scoop different letters. He loved this one! It’s been a long time since we’ve done it, so I want to try it again soon. Read more about floating letters here.

Fishing for Magnetic Letters

We started fishing for magnetic letters when Buddy was little. Buddy was not quite two in the picture above, and at the time, he didn’t know the names of the letters. But he loved fishing for magnetic letters then, and we still do it from time to time now. Read more about this activity here.

Spider Web Spelling

We did this activity at Halloween time. I put magnetic letters in different parts of a giant spider web. Buddy picked out a spelling card, and then he went trick or treating for the different letters. This was a lot of fun, and a great way to combine gross motor skills into literacy practice. You can read more about this activity here.

Do you have any other ideas for fun ways to practice the alphabet? Please share in the comments sections.

Jingle Bell Play: A Preschool STEM Activity

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I’ve been on the lookout for fun and easy holiday activities to do with Buddy this December. Buddy loves playing with his magnatiles, so when I saw a jingle bell magnatile activity on AndNextComesL’s blog, I knew it would be perfect. This is a STEM activity, which means it builds skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics. This particular activity focuses on the science of magnets, engineering with building magnatiles, and mathematics of working with different types of shapes. 

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I ordered a bag of assorted jingle bells for this activity, which was perfect. Some of them were very tiny, though, so they’re definitely not appropriate for younger children. I put the bells in a small cup, and I told Buddy that we would be decorating trees with the bells. Buddy loved the ideas of the bells, but he wanted to build gingerbread houses instead. 

Buddy put the bells inside the cubes and along the edges as well. He kept adding more and more until we used almost all of the bells! Even though only parts of the edge are magnets, they still held a lot of the bells. 

After building the house, Buddy decided he wanted to put the bells on a train. He poured the bells into the middle of the train base, and he was surprised when they flew to the edges. I thought he would be excited by it, but actually, he was frustrated because he wanted to put some squares on the side instead. He carefully pulled each one to the middle, but when they got too close to the edge, they flew back to the magnets. It was a great science demonstration of the power of magnets. 

Once we had finished making the train, I decided to pull out our horseshoe magnet to experiment with the bells. We were able to pull the bells from the sides of our houses with the magnet. Then, Buddy stuck the end of the magnet into the cup of bells. He was delighted to see that a massive amount of bells stuck to it. 

Buddy had a blast with the bells, and we’ve already pulled them out again. On that day, Buddy was trying to get plastic pony beads to stick to the magnatiles like the bells, so we talked again about how magnets stick to metal. And then we pulled the bells back out to play. I’m sure this will be an activity we do every December for years to come, and I expect we’ll probably do it outside the holiday season too. 

Spider Web Spelling

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Last week, a friend of mine posted about a spelling activity she did with her three year old. I loved it so much, I had to do it with Buddy too. We went trick or treating for letters while walking on a spider web!

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

To set up this activity, I used painters tape to make a spider web on the floor. Then I made some Halloween spelling cards. I originally was going to print out some words, but I decided to just use some Halloween stickers on index cards. I wanted to use words that had few letters, and I wanted a picture so Buddy could “read” the word before he spelled it.

Buddy is better at identifying capital letters, so I decided to make this activity a lowercase letter activity. Fortunately, our magnetic letter set has both upper and lowercase letters to choose from. After I wrote the words, I pulled out the letters. Some letters I had multiples of in the set, but I chose just to do one of every letter that was needed.Once I had the words and letters set, I put one letter on each intersection of the spider web. I put the extras at the top vertex of the web.

I told Buddy he needed to pick a word, and then he would go trick or treating for the letters. To make this a little more challenging, I told Buddy he could only walk on the line when he was going through the spider web. Buddy did a good job of remembering the letters he was looking for, but sometimes he wanted to bring the card with him in the spider web. 

Once Buddy found the letters, we took them to our front door. I used a magnetic chip clip to hold up the word card, and then Buddy spelled his word underneath. Before we started each new word, we looked to see what letters were needed, and which ones he’d already found. 

I was surprised that Buddy liked the longer words. When I was making the word cards, I almost skipped pumpkin because I thought it would be too long for him. But Buddy liked having a lot of letters to find, and he was really proud when he was done. 

Buddy had a lot of fun with this activity. When we had picked up all of the letters, he put them back down on the spider web. It did take a little bit of time to set up and pick up, but it was worth it. It was such a fun way to practice letters and work on gross motor skills.

Do you have any other ideas for activities with magnetic letters? Please share in the comments.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom STEM Game

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When I discovered Preschool STEAM’s blog this summer, I wanted to try out some of their Storytime STEAM activities for Time to Read Tuesday. This Chicka Chicka Boom Boom building activity made me excited because I already had all of the necessary materials. Plus we love the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

Originally, I had planned to do the activity the same way that Preschool STEAM did it. I gathered the materials to build a coconut tree (wooden blocks and popsicle sticks), and then I asked Buddy to see how many letters he could get into the tree. We read the story first, and then we started to build the tree. I didn’t have jumbo popsicle sticks, so we just used regular sized ones. However, I think jumbo ones would work even better. 

Once we started putting on letters, Buddy had the idea for turning the activity into a game. And I’m so glad he did, because we had so much fun! He asked to get our fishing pole from this bath set to use with the letters. (If you don’t have something similar, you can also use a kitchen spoon, string, and paperclip like we did in this fishing for magnetic letters activity.) 

Buddy decided we would take turns using the fishing pole to get a letter and then we’d put it on a tree. Of course, we said the letter as we picked each one. Whoever made the letters fall down lost the game. We also cried out “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” when that happened. It reminded me a lot of the game Jenga and a game from my childhood called Don’t Monkey Around. We had a great time playing together.

Every time the majority of the letters fell, we took down the whole tree and talked about ways to rebuild it to be stronger. We tried laying more popsicle sticks and arranging them in different ways. Then we’d play the game again to see if we could do better than the last time.

This activity is one of my new favorites. It took no time to set up, and very little time to pick up. It was a great way to practice letters with Buddy, and it was so much fun! We will definitely be playing this game again soon!

Do you have any other ideas for fun alphabet activities? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

Magnetic Letters Sensory Bin

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Buddy has been working on letters at preschool, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for fun alphabet activities to do at home. When I saw the idea of a magnetic alphabet sensory bin on Busy Toddler’s blog, I knew Buddy would love it. He plays with his construction site sensory bin all the time, but it’s been a long time since we’ve played in our rice bin. (Read more about our construction site sensory bin and our first rice bin here.) Even though I prefer black beans as a sensory bin filler, I chose to use rice because we have more of it. We don’t really have enough black beans to hide magnetic letters well.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by adding magnetic letters to the bottom of our sensory tub, and then I poured rice on top. The letters were completely hidden in the rice. I also pulled out an old cake pan, and I used a washable dry erase marker to write the alphabet on it. That way, Buddy could practice matching and identifying letters as he found them.

Buddy started with our large magnet (similar to this one). He put it in the rice, but he had a hard time getting any magnets to stick. Busy Toddler used a magnet wand instead, so maybe that works better for this type of activity. Buddy ended up pulling out the magnets and sticking it to his. The magnet wasn’t an effective tool, but he still enjoyed it. 

I pulled out a couple shovels, and Buddy was ecstatic! He was thrilled that he could now dig up the letters. Buddy asked me to play with him, so we both took a shovel and found letters. 

As we found letters, we matched them up to the letters on the cake pan. I used an old bag of magnetic letters, and there were some letter repeats. Any time we found a repeated letter, we stacked them on top of the match or put it on the edge of the pan. 

It took us awhile, but eventually we found all of the letters. But Buddy was having too much fun to stop! So he took the letters off of the pan and threw them back into the rice. I set the duplicate letters aside for the second round, so we only had one of each letter. 

We didn’t bury the letters quite as much for the second round, but Buddy was just as enthusiastic about finding them. 

This activity was amazing! Buddy played with the rice and letters for 75 minutes! (That’s forever in toddler time!) Then he decided he missed his beans and construction vehicles, so I switched the bin back. And Buddy played with those for another 20 minutes! It was a mess to clean up (beans are much neater than the rice), but it was so worth it. Buddy had so much fun, and it was great letter practice.

Do you have any fun alphabet activities? Please share in the comments!

Fishing for Magnetic Letters

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I first saw the idea for fishing for magnetic letters years ago. I pulled out materials when a friend’s kids came to visit, but we never got around to the activity. Recently, I saw the idea again on Make, Do, and Friend’s blog. Since I already had the materials, I thought it would be great to try with Buddy.

Before we started, I made a fishing pole with a slotted spoon, string, and a large paper clip. I wove the string around the different slots to keep it stable. Then, I put some magnetic letters into a plastic tub, and everything was ready to go.

Buddy was immediately interested in the activity. He wasn’t sure what to do with the spoon at first. However, once I showed him how to “go fishing”, he was excited to try it.

Buddy actually enjoyed when I fished more that when he did (it was a little challenging for him). As we caught letters, we talked about the letter and the color of it. Buddy is really excited about learning colors, so that made it very fun for him.

Buddy quickly decided that scooping letters with a spoon would be easier than fishing. He really enjoyed that as an option. Eventually, he just decided that grabbing letters with his hands would be easiest of all.

Before too long, Buddy wanted to dump all of the letters out. (He still really loves putting things in containers and dumping them out.) Buddy repeated this several times before deciding to play peek-a-boo with the tub.

Eventually, I decided to show Buddy that these were magnets. We took them downstairs and played with them on the back of our front door. We’ve never played with magnets there, so this was a new activity for him. He loved it!

This was one of Buddy’s favorite activities ever! He has played with the letters every day this week. He’s gotten a lot better at naming colors as a result. I’m sure we’ll continue to play with our fishing game for a long time.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Magnet Activity

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Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. 

For this week’s Time to Read Tuesday, I chose an activity for the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We hadn’t read this book in awhile, so I thought it would be fun to pull out to reread. Originally, I saw the idea of using letter magnets with a cut out tree on I Heart Crafty Things’ blog. I already had magnetic letters, construction paper, and an old pan, so it didn’t take long to put this activity together.

I started by grabbing an old pan from Buddy’s room. We already use this pan for play purposes only, so I wasn’t worried about wrecking it. Next, I sketched a coconut tree onto construction paper and cut it out. (I didn’t have brown paper, so I had to use white for the trunk.) I’m not the best artist, but I figured my picture would be just fine for Buddy. Finally, I used double sided tape to make my tree stick to the pan.

Buddy and I read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom together before we started the activity. I pointed out each letter while reading the book and again at the end of the book. Then, I gave Buddy the pan and magnetic letters. We have played with magnets many times before, so Buddy knew how to stick them to the pan. However, since these magnets were new for Buddy, he was really excited about them.

Letter magnets

As Buddy pulled out each letter, I said the letter. I made some of the letters “run to the top of the coconut tree”. We also said “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” a few times as we were pulling out the letters.

Letter magnets 2

Buddy played with these magnets for a really long time. He loved them! Eventually, he decided he was more interested in the tree and pulled it off of the pan. While this wasn’t part of my intended activity, Buddy enjoyed it.

pulling off paper

I’m sure we will do this book and activity again when Buddy is older and understands the letters. With an older child, I would match the letters to the pictures in the book. However, I didn’t do this with Buddy because I knew it would be too much for him.