Help your students get excited about letters with some fun preschool alphabet activities. There are so many ways to incorporate preschool literacy activities in the classroom. And this hands-on sensory bin using gold coin letters is a ton of fun and perfect for St. Patrick’s Day, a pirate theme, or just because!
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Related: St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Preschoolers
preschool alphabet activities with gold coins & rainbow rice
Affiliate links to comparable items below.
Materials we used
Plastic gold coins
Old bag of rice
Food coloring (regular and neon)
Related: Spring Activities for Preschoolers
Prep
One of the sensory materials I dyed was an old bag of rice someone gave me ages ago. To make the colorful rice, I separated the big bag into 7 small containers. I added food coloring to each container (no alcohol or vinegar) and stirred it all up. For more ideas for how to color rice, check out our colorful and scented rice, Things to Share and Remember’s rainbow rice, or The Forester Clan’s rainbow rice color wheel. Fun at Home with Kids has a comparison of various dyeing techniques, too.
As the rice was drying (it didn’t take that long), I made the alphabet coins. I just wrote a capital letter on 26 of them using a black permanent marker. I’m going to make a lowercase set, too.
Preschool alphabet activities using the letter coins
Prior to each of the following activities, hide the letter coins in a sensory bin. Then, have the children:
- Work together to match each of the letters to their corresponding mates on a piece of paper. For this activity, it was matching uppercase to lowercase letters.
- Find the letters in their names. They could have a name strip written out to help them remember the letters, or they could be encouraged to make their name without the prompt.
- Find the letters in their friends’ name. They could consult a classroom word wall for this, or their friends could help out.
- Put all of the letters in alphabetical order.
- Use the gold coin letters to spell high frequency words. This could easily be adjusted for more difficult words, depending on the children’s needs.
Other sensory materials to use
We used rice because I had it at home in our craft closet. Other items that could be used with the cold coins (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
- Gold slime
- Rainbow corn kernels
- Colorful yarn
- Sand or water beads (in a pirate sensory bin)
Preschool Lesson Plans You Should Check Out
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes book suggestions, printable plans, over 30 learning activities (both whole group, small group, and centers) related to the theme, and corresponding printables.
Grab the Preschool Pirate Lesson Plans and the Preschool St. Patrick’s Day Lesson Plans
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers
Fun activity with the gold coins! Thanks for sharing my rainbow rice link! 🙂