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This is a great activity that works both fine motor skills as well as letter recognition skills. It requires just a little bit of prep on your part and then you can sit back and let your little one play.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

Supplies

Magnetic Letters
Construction Paper
Sharpie
Ruler (or a straight edge or a steady hand!)
Small sensory bin

Set Up

Not sure about you but I have a gazillion of these fridge magnet letters in our home and I’m always trying to find fun ways to use them other than on the fridge. And if your collection is anything like ours you have multiple copies of each letter, which is perfect for this stacking activity.

To get started first use the sharpie or marker to create a nine square grid (see below) and in each square write a letter. We were focusing on certain letters in this activity and differentiating between upper and lower case.

I threw a few letter in there that I knew my little one (3 years old) would get right away and a few letters that were a bit more challenging.

I also chose letter that I had multiple copies of because that is most of the fun in this activity!

Put all the letters that you have written down into a small sensory bin (I used a rather larger tupperware container that normally keeps our muffins yummy!).

Point to the first letter and ask them to identify it. Depending on their age and level you can also ask them to tell you the sound that it makes. If they don’t remember or if they aren’t at that level yet make sure you say it for them and have them repeat it if they can.

Have your little one place the first magnetic letter on the sheet. Your toddler will soon realize that there are more than copy of each letter. Let them know that they are to stack the same letter on top of each other making a letter tower!

stacks12

Continue until all the letters are complete!

Problem Solving

Occasionally one of my daughters letter stacks toppled over. Now problem, I quickly told her that OK you can just re-stack them!

stacks11

Tons of Learning

This activity is great because they will have no clue that along with learning and practicing their letters they are also working on those important fine motor skills key to academic success later on!