6 Hands On Alphabet Activities

Disclosure: Discount School Supply sent us these items to review. All opinions are my own. While working at a preschool center and owning my own preschool program in my home, Discount has been one of my preferred sources for purchasing educational supplies because of their affordable prices and innovative products.

When Discount School Supply contacted me about a review, I knew right away that I wanted to try out some educational resources for one of my most popular preschool activities: learning the alphabet! Last year my writing center was hopping. We love writing, tracing, stamping, and anything that involves the ABCs.

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The moment we took these Dot-To-Dot Tracing Stampers out of the box, my six year old, Sugar and Spice, squealed with delight. I knew we would have to try them first. And I photographed the classroom stamp pad right away — you and I know that when you hand a stamp pad to a preschooler (or six year old), it only stays perfect for about 54 seconds.

Here is what I love about the Dot-To-Dot Tracing Stampers:

• They are nice and big and super easy for little hands to use
• It is a great confidence builder for kiddos who aren’t writing yet
• Children who are beginning to spell can easily form words with them
• It is a perfect way for a child to practice writing without the help of a teacher or adult
• These stamps even encourage proper letter formation as they have an arrow which shows how to begin writing the letter
• They come in upper case, lower case, and numbers

My four year old son, Lil’ Red loved identifying the letters as he stamped them. And Sugar and Spice proudly announced “These really work. They help me write better.” They were so fun that I joined in too!

This is what we love about the stamp pad:

• It’s washable
• Several kiddos can use it at once
• The vibrant colors
• You can refill it with liquid watercolor
• It’s easy to store

Next, we dove into the letter jewels. The moment I saw these, I thought “light table!!!!”

Here is what we really enjoyed about the Letter Jewels:

• They are perfect letter manipulatives for working on letter recognition
• The translucent plastic makes them gorgeous in the light
• Since they are small and lightweight, they are super easy to store
• Older children can use them to form words and even write sentences

I would only recommend these for children you can trust to keep these out of their mouth or under very close supervision. Due to the size, they are a choking hazard for younger children.

Discount School Supply was also generous enough to send my all-time favorite product —  liquid watercolors! I mixed one of the colors with some hair gel and added the jewels, all in a plastic bag. We put it up to the window and “oooohed” and “ahhhhed.” I do highly recommend using packing tape all around the edges of the bag to prevent it from leaking or breaking along the edges.

If you are a lover of liquid watercolors like I am, this is the liquid watercolor jackpot! There’s even gold and silver!
If you need to stay frugal, I recommend getting red (or magenta), blue, and yellow. You can combine them easily to make other colors.

Here’s why liquid watercolors are my favorite item:

• They are a food coloring substitute that is washable
• We use them for sensory play, discovery bottles, art activities, and crafts
• A little bit goes a long way
• Our favorite calm down jars have them

Lastly, we enjoyed playing with the trace and write letters.

The write on letters are essentially a whiteboard in the shape of a letter — genius! Sugar and Spice loved tracing them with different colored Crayola washable dry-erase markers.

Lil’ Red enjoyed using glass beads with the letters.

Some of the letters ended up having rough edges, but we sanded them down with a scrap piece of sandpaper. It fixed them right up, and we got to playing. I would love to see these made in lower case letters too.

Here’s what we enjoyed about the trace and write letters:

• They come with a HighScope curriculum guide with several suggestions for learning activities
• Children can work on writing confidently
• The tracing letters are easily cleaned with an eraser or tissue
• They serve as a great template for bulletin board letters or tactile letters
• These can be used as a movable alphabet as well
• The tote pictured below provides perfect storage for them

We have thoroughly enjoyed these new (to us) alphabet activities sent to us from Discount School Supply. If you have any of these, I would love to hear what activities you do with them too.

Thank you Discount School Supply!

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Katie T. Christiansen

Creator at Preschool Inspirations

Katie has spent 17 combined years in the Early Childhood field as a teacher, preschool owner, and educational writer. She has worked in profit and non-profit programs, high-risk schools, and started an in-home preschool and outdoor collaborative preschool program. She adores being a mom to three children, and her youngest is currently in preschool.

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