SPELLING SUCCESS: HOW TO TEACH SPELLING TO KIDS WITH SENSORY PLAY
Sensory play aids our little ones in their development through fun and creative ways. By engaging all 5 senses in sensory play, it fully immerses kids in the experience and encourages learning through exploration. Sensory play is also beneficial when you’re trying to target specific skills like spelling!
As parents, we’re always looking for easier and more interactive ways to teach our kids, and using sensory play is like our golden ticket. It allows children to fully connect with the letters through different sounds, textures, and even smells.
That’s why today, I’m thrilled to share a guide on how to teach spelling using sensory play. Whether you’re using homemade materials or ready-made activity packs, there are countless ways to incorporate sensory play into learning time. Let’s dive in!
Spelling Success: How To Teach Spelling To Kids with Sensory Play
Name Recognition
Even if your kids are too young to start fully reading, they’re never too young to start letter recognition activities!
Begin by writing letters on the outside of the window with washable window crayons. On the other side of the window, wet some foam letters and lay them out within reach for those tiny hands. Now, just ask your kids to match up the foam letters to the written ones.
Whether you want to write the letters of the alphabet or your kid’s name, it’s a great way to introduce early literacy skills. Being able to actually grasp the letters and feel the texture of the foam will also help with retention and reinforcement of the different letters!
Pom Pom Letter Reveal
If you’re in the beginning stages of teaching the ABC’s and you find that your kids’ aren’t too interested, add some pom poms! Works like a charm every time!
Start by using double sided tape, and use it to draw a letter on a white piece of paper. Scatter poms poms all over the page, and have your kid pick up the paper so the extra pom poms fall off and reveal the hidden letter underneath.
Go through as many letters of the alphabet as you can before the charm wears off, and then do it again a different day! It’s a versatile activity that can also double as a way to teach your child to clean up after themselves when they’re done. Win-win!
Spelling Game for Kids
This spelling activity is fantastic when you want to practice the different sequences of letters, demonstrating to your kids that changing just one letter can change the entire word itself!
Grab a recycled paper towel roll, and use a marker to write “at”, “is”, and “ad” on the roll. Cut out a square window, make a cut above the square, and write letters going down craft sticks. Now, just insert the sticks through the holes to create different words.
This is a great activity for learning to spell words within the same word family. It’s an interactive and entertaining way to introduce spelling strategies, which will inevitably help your kids’ when it’s time to practice reading and writing! Super useful all around.
Colored Rice Sensory Play
This activity isn’t just tactically beneficial, it’s a fun and colorful way to incorporate sensory bins benefits while focusing on letter sequence and placement!
Fill your bin with colored dye rice, and randomly hide letters throughout the bin within the rice. All your little one has to do is find the letters inside, and place them in order afterwards!
This activity has endless benefits. It helps your kids learn to spell words, sound out the letters as they create the words, and read them over when they’re done! You can even focus specifically on sight words for quicker and easier recognition.
Color Mixing and Writing Bags
Sensory bags are calming, explorative, and beneficial for building neural connections within the brain. Plus, kids love when they’re able to physically manipulate an object and watch their work come to life it builds a sense of accomplishment!
This activity is simple and easy just mix some hair gel and food coloring together in a ziplock bag. Verbally provide spelling instructions, like, “can you write the letter B for me?” or, use prompt cards so they can visually see each letter they need to recreate.
This letter formation activity is a great place to start for earlier learners, which can also double as a way to practice with each letter sound!
Salt Dye Letter Tray
This activity is similar to color mixing, we’re just using salt instead of hair gel. As an added bonus, this activity is taste-safe which makes it versatile and useful for all ages!
Pour salt into a zip lock bag, add in food coloring, and mix it well. Pour the mixture evenly into a recycled shoe box or tray, and ask your little ones to trace different letters with their fingers.
For younger kids, you could provide easier tasks like using prompt cards and having them trace each letter in the salt. For older kids, you can make the task a little more complex by providing a spelling list of sight words, asking them to spell the word in the salt, and read them aloud when they’re done. It’s a versatile activity for every kid learning how to spell!
Computer DIY Activity
Kids are obsessed with keyboards pressing buttons is captivating for them! Instead of fighting to get your work done each time you bring your laptop out, give them their own DIY computer. This inspires imagination, aids in the development of fine motor skills, and fits perfectly into our list of fun sensory spelling activities.
Use a cardboard box with an attached lid and insert layers of styrofoam into the box. Next, grab some bubble wrap, and use permanent markers to recreate a keyboard. Use glue to secure the keyboard onto the styrofoam, and add aluminum foil to the lid for a “screen”.
This activity works wonders when you want to assist kids in spelling words that may be a little more difficult. You could write the words on a piece of paper and have them match the letters on the keyboard, or spell them out and ask them to find each letter!
Recycled Cap Stamps
Making personalized playdough stamps isn’t just a fun and inexpensive alternative to buying traditional label makers, it’s also a way to inspire creativity and practice spelling!
This is another activity that takes no time to set up, but will entertain kids for hours. Just grab some recycled bottle caps, use hot glue to “write” letters on each cap, and let them dry! Hand a group of letters to your kid, and ask them to stamp the caps into the playdough to create different words.
There are tons of benefits of playing with playdough, so of course I wanted to incorporate it into an engaging spelling activity!
Butter Slime Letter Find
Another base I love to incorporate into activities as much as I can is slime, it has a variety of benefits! So I thought, why not combine 3D letters to create a super interactive and texturally engaging spelling activity that will have kids entirely captivated?
This activity is a bit more time-consuming to create, but it’s SO worth it when you get to watch your little one’s face light up with wonder. Follow the guides on how to make butter slime and how to make 3D letters, and just combine them when you’re finished!
It has the same idea of the colored rice sensory activity, it’s just another way to make it a bit more texturally interesting with the added benefits from the slime. Super fun!
Alphabet Activity Pack
There are tons of alternatives out there for teaching spelling through smartphones and tablets. While these are useful and simple solutions, you can decrease the downsides of screentime by opting for an activity pack that will benefit your kid’s development through physical, interactive, and hands-on activities like printable activity packs!
On the Mothercould in your Pocket resource, I offer a printable Alphabet activity pack that has favorable activities like letter matching, alphabet matching, and an alphabet maze. Not only do you get access to this pack, you’ll get access to other developmental activity packs, too!
Whether you’re looking for writing activities, helpful holiday-themed projects, or packs to help with numbers and math you can find everything and more within the resource!
Which sensory play activities are you using to help teach spelling?
Teaching your little ones how to spell is no easy feat, which is why using sensory activities for kids can be incredibly beneficial! When you combine learning with fun-filled projects, kids don’t even realize that what they’re doing is, well, learning! It takes some stress off of you, and makes education fun for them.
For tons of different useful sensory activities, visit the Mothercould blog! For access to activity packs, descriptive play recipes, and some fun bonus content, download the Mothercould in your Pocket resource. Happy learning!