Fun Writing Activities- Christmas Salt Tray
Hello and happy Friday! For today's Fine Motor Fridays activity we tried some fun writing activities using a salt tray. I even created a free printable to use with it! Quick note- affiliate links are used in this post.
Lately my preschooler has had a favorite new activity. She likes to grab a marker and piece of paper and ask me how to spell various words to write out a message. She is so proud to show off her latest message whenever she writes something. She makes all of our birthday cards now, and loves just writing random messages.
I wanted to find some fun ways to encourage this new thing of hers. We actually did a whole other awesome activity with salt recently as part of a preview of Asia Citro's awesome book 150 Screen Free Activities for Kids, which I am writing up for the blog, and we ended up with colored salt from it. Which. Is. AWESOME.
She actually has a recipe for colored salt in the book too, we just happened to end up with some after what we did. I highly recommend Asia's book by the way- just one activity from this book has already snowballed into several more. I can't imagine how much fin we will have as we explore more ideas!
Salt Tray Writing Activities
This started as a simple salt tray, with the green salt in a baking pan and I gave my daughter a candy cane to write with to make it more Christmassey. (Note do not make the same mistake I made the first time and remove the wrapping from the candy cane- what was I thinking?! It got sticky and she kept taking breaks to lick it, hahaha.)
She liked writing in the salt and asking me how to spell various words, as expected, so then I thought I would create some printable seasonal word cards for her to practice with.
The cards themselves are in color but we need to replace the colored ink in our printer so ours are black and white.
Head to the Free Printables section of the Lalymom Shop page to get your copy of these free printable cards.
I just printed them, cut them out and used it like that but you could also run them through your favorite laminator to keep them looking like new.
You guys, I have to tell you I don't think I've EVER seen my daughter SO proud as when she finished writing each of these words! BEAMING, I tell you, beaming with pride.
We talked about the letter sounds in the words, and did our best to sound out the words but that is still pretty new to her.
She writes her letters pretty large so in some cases the letters went onto another line, and she often prints capital letters where is should be lowercase, but I honestly didn't correct those things at this point. She is enjoying writing letters and I am so proud of her! This opens up all kinds of activities and ideas we can set up for her….a new chapter in her little life!
What do you think? Do you have a little writer in your life who would like to try this out? Let me know how you like it and please do pin to share!
Looking for more Fine Motor Ideas? Use the code XMAS to get $2 off my eBook version of 99 Fine Motor Activities for Ages 1 to 5. Offer ends December 22nd so buy yours today!
Fine Motor Fridays
Welcome to another week of awesome fine motor skills ideas! That is what Fine Motor Fridays is all about! Click through to see what the other FMF bloggers have been up to this week and be sure to follow us all on Pinterest at the Fine Motor Fridays Pinterest Board!
Fine Motor Christmas Tree Sewing Activity from Craftulate
Christmas Sensory Bin from Still Playing School
Paperclip Candy Canes from School Time Snippets
3 Free Printable Fine Motor Tracing Worksheets – Christmas Themed from Powerful Mothering
Toddler Gift Wrapping Invitation to Play from House of Burke
What an adorable little writer!
I LOVE that you used a candy cane as the writing tool!
I love everything about this! The printables are great, and the candy cane as a writing utensil is just awesome!
What a fun idea! Cute printables, too!