Letter Writing in Sprinkles Tray 🖌ages 3-5 🖌 Sprinkles make everything more fun, don’t they? These Montessori-inspired sensory writing trays are such a great way to make learning letters, shapes and numbers fun! We decided to make one using sprinkles because who doesn’t love sprinkles, right? Well, it was a huge hit with Oliver and he proceeded to practice writing the whole alphabet in one sitting! Check out our Sensory Writing Kit that comes with a tray like the one in this activity, a paint brush and rainbow rice! Get one here.
And don’t forget to check out our NEW book – 100 Easy STEAM Activities is full of fun games and creative projects to learn early concepts in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math with materials you already have around the house!
MATERIALS NEEDED FOR LETTER WRITING IN SPRINKLES TRAY (affiliate links):
Small tray (get one like ours here)
SET UP YOUR LETTER WRITING IN SPRINKLES TRAY:
1. Start by pouring some sprinkles into a small tray.
2. Then give the child a paintbrush and ask them to draw letters. We found some black letter stickers and placed them on index cards to make our flash cards.
Video of Letter Writing in Sprinkles Activity:
Check out Oliver writing letters in sprinkles in the video below:
You can see Oliver still needs to work on proper grip and drawing letters in the correct direction. He was just starting to learn letters when we made this video and I had really been struggling to find a way to get him to practice writing letters. This activity was a godsend really as he happily sat down and went through the whole alphabet! He did steal a few sprinkles along the way, but that’s to be expected, right?
This activity would work great for shapes, numbers, sight words and math facts. Everything is just more fun with sprinkles, right?
Get our Sensory Writing Tray with paintbrush and rainbow rice here.
Looking for more sensory tray ideas? Check out some of our other sensory trays using sand, glitter and salt.
So you might be asking youself exactly what is a writing tray? Well basically, it’s any low rimmed tray filled with a movable medium. It’s a great way to help kids learn letters and letter formation, numbers and shapes. You can also practice sight words and math facts for older kids.
Here is a list of our favorite materials to fill writing trays:
- Salt
- Sand
- Sprinkles
- Glitter
- Pudding
- Play Dough
- Spices
- Barley
- Oatmeal
- Shaving Cream
- Rice
- Sugar
- Flour
- Cornmeal
Here are some fun ideas for objects to use to draw the letters:
- Paintbrush
- Fingers
- Feather
- Candy Cane (for holiday time)
- Unsharpened pencil eraser
- Chopstick
- Make-up Brush
This article from The OT Toolbox has tons of great info about writing trays.
For more fun ideas on learning letters, check out our other letter activities!
About Raising Dragons
Raising Dragons is a site dedicated to raising strong, smart, amazing kids! Our focus is on creating activities that can easily be pulled together with items you have around the house. We believe learning should be fun and accessible for everyone and can be done with everyday objects! We also know parents are busy and don’t have lots of time to pull together activities so we keep things very SIMPLE! Check out some of our favorite activities like: Alphabet Lids, Calm Down Sensory Bottle and the Paper Towel Roll & Pom Pom Challenge.
