Ice Alphabet

Ice letters are a great way to play while you explore the alphabet. They are the perfect sensory experience in the summer or winter!

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We got major snow this weekend. We were buried under over 30 inches! My original plan was to take these ice letters outside for a winter alphabet hunt but our kids wanted to stay in and warm so, as we always do, we adapted my "lesson plan" to allow them to take charge of the learning!

We made colored ice letters using our favorite alphabet sand molds and water mixed with a bit of food coloring. You could use letter ice molds, too!

Coloring the ice does stain hands slightly so if this will bother you or the children you can leave the ice plain. We usually have stains from some art project on ourselves or our clothing so we don't mind. We love colors!

Once the letters were frozen, I put them in a bin for the kids to explore. We named the letters and I would occasionally ask our preschooler if he could find a certain letter in the mix. What a fun sensory experience!

Letters don't get much more tactile than this! They loved tracing their fingers along the smooth ice while practicing letter formation which is the perfect pre-writing experience. Just like every time we bring snow inside to play, I just put a towel on the floor under a few containers while we explored.

I asked our older daughter if she'd like to make words with the letters. What began as a simple activity soon evolved into a way for her to demonstrate her understanding of previous lessons through play.

We talked about word families as we added a new letter in front of the word am to create new words. She impressed me with scram and explained, "You know, like Oscar the Grouch says?"

She also spelled fox then made it plural with an -es ending showing me that stamping plural nouns and spelling words with DUPLO blocks allowed her to master this irregular plural noun spelling all through play!

I absolutely love how one sensory invitation to explore letters allowed me to teach, review, and explore new concepts with both of my children at different levels all while we played together!