The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

  • Home
  • Welcome
    • About Me
    • Popular Posts
    • Play Challenge
    • Subscribe
  • Age
    • Baby
    • Toddler
    • Preschooler
    • School Age
  • Activities
    • Literacy
    • Numeracy
    • Creativity
    • Physical
    • PHSE
    • Science
  • Resources
    • Spaces
    • Toys
    • Books
  • Contact
  • Kindness Elves

Christmas Tree Sensory Writing Tray

November 26, 2014 by Anna Ranson

Create a Christmas tree sensory writing tray to encourage mark making, early letter formation and sight word learning! A perfect sensory, early literacy experience for different stages of learning with a Christmas activity theme.Christmas tree sensory writing tray

Creating sensory writing trays is one of my favourite early learning activities to make for the kids, and we’ve been doing this Montessori inspired activity for 3 or 4 years now, in various different formats!

Here’s a post that explains how we made a very simple, coloured salt writing tray to encourage basic mark-making and early letter copying and it explains how to dye salt very easily.

Christmas tree writing and mark-making tray

For this Christmas themed tray I was lucky enough to spot these gorgeous, Christmas tree shaped food platters in the local supermarket (UK readers- I found these in Sainsburys in the party ware aisle.)

I dyed about half a cup of fine salt using green Wilton Gel Colouring (we use these for ALL play recipes as they are the only ones that make the lovely, vibrant colours we are looking for.)

Then I sprinkled lots of green glitter over the top and set it out with a dry paintbrush ready for mark making in.Christmas tree mark-making tray literacy activity

I cut some green Christmas tree shapes from card and onto some of them I drew basic handwriting shapes and patterns for Miss 2 to have a go at copying, as she is still at the pre-writing and mark-making stage.

She loved using these and feeling special that she had her own set to use. Some she copied quite accurately and for others she just experimented and did her own thing, narrating as she made marks and squiggles in the sparkly tray.Christmas tree pattern making tray

For Miss 4 I wrote out some basic sight words that she has been starting to read independently, as well as a few that are newer to her or more tricky to sound out phonetically. She read these and copied them into the salt, then did her own phonetic writing and practised her name too. Christmas tree sight words writing tray

When my older daughter had a go she wanted to practise getting her letters all the correct way around and forming her numbers correctly, as this has been something she is working on in handwriting. She also can use this tray to practise more unusual sight words and to start decoding and copying longer words.Christmas tree sight word writing tray

The contents of the tray can be tipped into a zip-loc bag and stored indefinitely, which makes this a very economical early literacy activity that can be pulled out and reused in different ways over the coming year! (My favourite type of playful learning activities!)

I would encourage younger children to use the tray with their fingers before introducing a tool, to further develop the kinaesthetic learning nature of the activity.

What they are learning as they play:

literacy: letter recognition, phoneme-grapheme correspondences, sight word recognition, letter formation, mark-making, that marks carry meaning

physical: pincer grasp, hand-eye coordination, sensory exploration, kinaesthetic learning

See our other SENSORY SALT TRAYS here!

And all of our PLAYFUL LITERACY posts here (you won’t find a single worksheet or printable here!)

Follow my LITERACY PLAY board on Pinterest too for many more ideas collected from around the web

Follow Anna @ The Imagination Tree’s board Literacy Play Ideas on Pinterest.

Related Posts

  • Pumpkin Sensory Writing TrayPumpkin Sensory Writing Tray
  • Candy Cane Sensory Writing TrayCandy Cane Sensory Writing Tray
  • Monster Slime Sensory Writing TrayMonster Slime Sensory Writing Tray
  • Soccer Sensory Writing TraySoccer Sensory Writing Tray
  • Star Wars Sensory Writing TrayStar Wars Sensory Writing Tray
  • DIY Alphabet Pebbles for Literacy PlayDIY Alphabet Pebbles for Literacy Play

Filed Under: Age, Christmas, Christmas Tree, Emergent Writing, Fine Motor Development, Invitations to Play, Kinaesthetic Learning, Learn, Literacy, Make, Motor Skills, Name Writing, Play, Play Recipes, Pre-Writing, Preschooler, Resources, Salt, School Age, Sensory, Sensory Salt, Sensory Writing Tray, Sight Words, Toddler, Writing Tagged With: Early Literacy, Literacy, Montessori, Playful Literacy, Writing Tray

« Invitation to Decorate Play Dough Christmas Trees
Snowman Sight Word Bingo Craft »

Comments

  1. Laura says

    November 30, 2014 at 2:32 am

    Can you clarify how you used gel food coloring to dye salt?
    Thanks!

    • Tracy says

      December 8, 2014 at 4:33 am

      I’d like to know, too!

The Imagination Tree on FacebookThe Imagination Tree on TwitterThe Imagination Tree on PinterestThe Imagination Tree on G+RSS feed from The Imagination TreeThe Imagination Tree straight to your inbox

Search The Imagination Tree

About The Imagination Tree Hello and welcome! I'm Anna, Mama of 4, early years teacher and play enthusiast from the UK! Click here to read more about me.

The Kindness Elves Store
Play Ideas on The Imagination Tree

Create with The Imagination Tree

Makes on The Imagination Tree

Sign up for our FREE emails:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Categories

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT