It coloured straight away and we played with it immediately. Some people suggest leaving it to dry overnight, but because we hadn’t used much colour it was ready to use.
Then I found a little wooden tray that had come with a play-set of wooden food and lined it with the shiny side of tin foil. This forms a bright, shiny base that can be seen through the salt- an extra sensory dimension!
She immediately wanted to try and write the letters from her name and loved the feeling of the soft salt running through her fingers and the shiny foil being revealed as she drew.
I wrote some of the letters, shook the tray to resettle the salt a little but so that she could still see them faintly, and then she was able to try and trace over the remaining marks to have her own try. She loved doing wiggly snakes for letter Sssss!
And she was very keen to write 3 too, as that’s her age. I love her result!
We practised more numbers, then tried pattern-making such as zig-zags, wavy lines, spots and spirals. All these marks are fantastic for pre-writing and emergent writing development as they are important for letter formation later on.
She also simply used it to draw her own pictures in, from self-portraits to beautiful flowers!
Her finished “flower with lots of petals and middle bits.”
This multi-sensory, tactile approach to pre-writing skills and letter formation is important as a playful, hands-on way to learn. It is age appropriate, open-ended, creative and fun, rather than being a closed activity with only one outcome or objective in mind, like a worksheet. It encourages thinking skills and investigative playful learning.
Store the salt in a zip-loc bag or a mason jar and re-use it for similar activities each week.
We have many multi-sensory literacy and maths activities coming up soon and I’m excited to share them!
Learning Links:
sensory: explore materials using a range of senses
fine motor skills: use hands and fingers to explore sensory materials, develop finger control and small hand muscle strength
literacy: experiment with mark-making, use letters and letter-like shapes to represent real sounds, attempt to form letter shapes correctly
Cakie: 3 years and 4 months
Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says
Ohhh I love this idea – we’re not up to letters yet but thanks to the In the Night Garden magazine J loves tracing shapes this would make such a good way to do it. Will have to try it with him. I look forward to reading more of this
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
yes it’s great for the pre-writing stage and fun for simply making marks and talking about what happens when he does it! thanks for the comment 🙂
Naomi @ Upcycled Creatively says
Lovely 🙂 I liked your idea to shake the tray for her to trace your letters too. I can feel your excitement at starting the ‘playful Literacy’ and ‘Playful Maths’ stages. Infact, I feel a little sad that my boys have finished this stage 🙁 It is magical isn’t it?
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Ahh you know me well Naomi! I’m SO excited about this stage and I’ve been waiting very patiently- not pushing her at all. But now she’s loving every minute of it and I’m loving the challenge of seeing how many ways we can think of doing these things without a worksheet!
Here come the girls says
We have done this with glitter. Such a brilliant idea. I like the foil underneath as it makes it more magical. Such a brilliant way to make learning fun.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
OOoooo anything with glitter is GLORIOUS! sounds like a fab alternative! thanks!
Kim @ The Educators' Spin On It says
Although mine already knows her ABC’s we’re working on learning another language. We’re working on our Hindi letters at home. This will be a great way to encourage my daughter to practice and learn!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
I really love that idea Kim! how fantastic to be teaching her another script already and this will hopefully be a really fund and low pressure method!
Susanna says
Great idea— I am working myself up to do a bit more ‘formal’ learning with Matthew soon, learning letters and sounds. Not too fussed about writing at this stage but this will be ideal prep for all of it!!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Absolutely! and it doesn’t have to even be letters and numbers yet if he’s not interested, mark making and doodling is still a great sensory early literacy step!
Sharon says
As a trainer of early childhood teachers, I really appreciate all of your hands on ideas.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Thank you Sharon!
Ellie says
We must be on the same wavelength! – We’ve been having fun making letters in coloured sand yesterday, my eldest is at that stage too of being really interested in letters and numbers and I’m loving your playful ideas for nurturing that interest. We’ve also just started drawing round our hands (and feet!) for making our measuring hands, she’s so excited we’re going to be measuring lots of things! They’re so fun at this stage aren’t they? Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Ellie
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Haha that’s funny Ellie! Yes they are at similar ages/ stages aren’t they? I am LOVING this age and find every day so exciting at the moment!
Marieke says
This is such a great idea! I’m looking forward to all those interesting posts you promise !
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Thank you! I hope they turn out to be interesting! hehe
Helen Cross says
Love this idea. The literacy shells have gone down very well this week and I love the tactile nature of the salt too. My 3 year old has been interested in letters and numbers for a little while now so it’s great to have these inspiring ideas to foster a love of language and numbers with him. I may combine the two at some point as the shells give him something to copy.
Mama D says
We just tried this activity out the other day and again yesterday. My oldest enjoyed writing his numbers in the salt and spent a lot of time playing with it. Thank you for posting these great ideas. You have inspired me to start a blog of my own (http://andnextcomesl.blogspot.ca).
Thanks again for your awesome ideas!