Sensory Sand Trays Great for Letter Practice
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by Tricia of Critters and Crayons
My husband and I first saw the Sensory Sand-Writing Tray at a Montessori school.
We watched as the school’s director filled a wooden tray with sand and then used two fingers to draw a large letter. He explained that young children may have difficulty with fine motor skills (like controlling a pencil,) but from a young age, they can write using their entire hand.
With a little shake, the sand was smooth again. And the slate was ready for a new letter!
This kind of hands-on learning and innovative thinking is what attracted us to the Montessori method.
Montessori Sand Tray At Home
We made our own fine motor sand-writing tray for the kids to use at home using a bottle of colored yellow sand from Hobby Lobby which we put into a dollar store rectangular baking tin. (*If you have pets, use a pan with a lid.)
Our daughter is old enough to practice writing Sight Words using Sight Word Cards as a guide.
For our 3 year old son, we set out cards with shapes so he can practice drawing shapes in the sand, too.
And, what kid doesn’t love to just touch sand?
For other Critters And Crayons posts on Montessori-inspired activities, materials and topics, please check out:
- Our New Montessori Corner
- A Kid DIY Snack Station
- DIY Montessori Wooden Sensory Alphabet
- Mom, You Need To Invite Dad To The Peace Table
Bio: Trica is a blogger and mom of two at Critters and Crayons. Find her Collaborative Montessori-Inspired Activities And Ideas Pinterest Board for more great ideas!
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I love sand, rice, and finger paint to teach children to form letters. Forming letters can be taught even before a child can hold a pencil correctly. I think it’s important to teach correct letter formation early. Once a child practices making letters a certain way, it can be very hard to relearn the correct way.
I’m curious. What style of writing do you teach? Schools in my area teach D’Nealian or Manuscript printing. I started a discussion about this on my BlogFrog community. http://theblogfrog.com/1501335/forum/157686/what-style-of-printing-do-you-teach.html
What a great idea – and so easy!! I’ll try this for spelling/writing, and then let the kids play with the sand and some measuring tools to see where that takes them. I’m thinking writing and math both done in sand 🙂 I’m sure we could do science in this too. Thanks for sharing!
Great idea, Tricia! I love how people with little ones never use baking pans for their intended purpose 🙂 We’ve tried this activity with rice and with flour, but never with the most obvious choice – will have to try this now! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Your daughter is so cute… I love the color of her Sensory Sand-Writing Tray.. This is really helpful for the toddlers to learn writing the letters of the alphabet. Thanks for sharing the idea…
Thanks for allowing us to guest post! Love your blog, Melissa- Enjoy DC!