Activity: letter collage & sensory play

I am a keep it simple stupid kind of gal. It makes for a day filled with open ended play, exploration, and self expression.

This activity started with me looking through pinterest to find an "cute educational" project. We've been doing a lot (A LOT) of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom recently, so I wanted to do an activity where the children could practice naming multiple letters. I only have one student that is ready for large projects, so to limit the size of the project I began by cutting out letters from a magazine. Not knowing which direction the activity was going to go in, I cut what felt was tons of letters. 

Again I browsed pinterest, saw all kinds of amazing things, then thought to myself, "What am I doing? They kids just want to play." So we ended up doing a letter collage. No one was frustrated. They got to use the glue; I got to help them with skills rather than worry about what goes where, etc. It also allowed each child to work at their own pace. I challenged one of the children to think of words that started with a few of the letters. 


I had a bazillion jillion letters left over when they were finished, so we put them in the sensory table. They can play I spy, sort them, try to build their names or other words, find matches - all kinds of fun stuff!

Now - not all projects are so open ended. I wanted to share this particular project because it was easily accessible to children of multiple abilities. It gave them each time to practice what they needed, whether that was picking up small pieces of paper, getting the paper into the glue, getting glue onto the paper, naming letters, or thinking of words. Making time for children to do open ended activities such as these helps them when it is time to do a more structured activity.

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