Sensory play is a perfect way to help extend our children’s learning through play, plus, Ayla loved this activity because we managed to combine her love of filling and emptying, letters and anything sensory!
Resources
- Cardboard
- Pencil
- Red and Green Paint
- Black pen
- 2 Toilet Roll Tubes
- Scissors
- Hot Glue Gun
- Die
- Sticker dots
- Dry Chickpeas
The Set Up
Draw a rough strawberry shape onto your piece of cardboard, when you are happy with the design paint it red and green. Once the paint is dry, use the black pen to outline the strawberry and it’s leaves. Cut the toilet roll tubes into thinner rings and use a hot glue gun to glue them onto your strawberry. Use a pen to write a letter into the center of each toilet roll ring.
Take the sticker dots and stick one on each side of the dot, write 1 letter (the three letters you wrote on your strawberry) on each of the dots. Pop the chickpeas in a bowl along with a scoop and your are ready to play.
Playing The Activity
I used lowercase letters on our die because the majority of the English language is written using lowercase letters so it’s just a good place to start! I also only used three letter ‘s’, ‘a’ and ‘t’ because it’s suggested we teach the letters ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’, ‘i’ and ‘n’ first. Ayla is really good a recognising ‘a’ and will occasionally get ‘s’ and ‘t’ correct so I thought we would start off with the first three. Take a look at the letters together taking time to sound the letters as they are rolled.
Activities Like This Are Great Because;
- Support listening to instructions as you play the game together
- Build on your child’s knowledge of phonic and letter recognition
- Encourage turn taking by involving a die
- Boost cognitive development with the sensory aspect