If your child enjoys play dough, he or she will love the activity I’m featuring in today’s installment of my 101 Ways to Teach the Alphabet Series. With a ball of play dough and some cut up straw pieces, your child will be learning letters and developing fine motor skills while having a lot of fun.
I call today’s activity making letters with straws and play dough.
For this activity, you need some play dough and a bunch of cut up straw pieces. I cut my straw pieces to about 2″ tall. Then I put the materials on a tray.
My daughter began by flattening out a ball of play dough to a pancake about 1″ thick. The exact thickness of the pancake isn’t important, as long as it is thick enough to stick the straws and keep them standing upright.
I provided my daughter with some sandpaper letters to give her a model for the letter she was to create.
She selected straws and poked them into the play dough in the shape of a ‘v.’
Then I gave her another letter to copy, and she began again.
This time she made a ‘d.’
If the play dough pancake gets too thin or hole-y to support more straws, your child simply needs to gather it into a ball and flatten it again. Then it will be ready for more letters!
More ways to teach to the alphabet
More alphabet posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Letter hunt sensory bin
- Erasing letters with a Q-tip
- I spy letter hunt
- Spaghetti letters
- Letter puzzles
- Making “alphabet soup”
- Smash the puffy letters
- Kinetic sand letters
- Letter hopscotch
- Crystallized letters
- Letter hop
- Letter tic-tac-toe
- Rainbow letters
You can find more ways to teach the alphabet on my Literacy Activities for Kids page and my Letter Learning Pinterest board.
Cute & Creative Ideas!!! 🙂