Alphabet Slides is a fun and super simple to set up fine motor activity for toddlers! It’s also a great way to learn or practice letters and colour recognition.

Do you have magnetic letters and numbers on your fridge and are looking for a fun way to use them?
Check out this fun and easy to make fine motor activity for toddlers using cardboard tubes and magnetic letters!
Want more? Check out these other fun and easy toddler activities using magnetic fridge letters: Alphabet Matching or Alphabet Soup or Magnetic Letter Leaf Match or ABC Stacks!
Cardboard Tubes
Cardboard tubes are a great way to entertain toddlers and preschoolers. I usually like to tape cardboard tubes (toilet paper or paper towel rolls) to the edge of a large sensory bin but you can also tape them to the fridge, cupboards or wall.
After taping up the cardboard tubes, grab all your magnetic letters. Not all my magnetic letters fit through the tubes. So I did a went through and sorted the letters first to find the ones that did fit through the cardboard tubes. These letters included t’s, f’s, i’s, l’s, h’s and j’s.
Place all the letters into the sensory bin and ask your little one to drop them down the tubes.
Learning with Magnetic Letters
For my little toddlers dropping the letters down the cardboard tubes was great fine motor busy activity and they loved it!
For older toddlers and preschoolers, you can turn this activity into a fun sorting activity. Place colourful bowls under the cardboard tubes and have your preschooler sort the letters by colour by dropping them down the tubes into the correct bowl.
Great Early Literacy Activity
This was a great activity to set up indoors to introduce letters and colours to my twin toddlers. They were 15 months when we first did this so I was not focused on them learning the colours or letters but instead developing their hand eye coordination and fine motor skills.
However, like always I talked or narrated what my twins were doing, making sure to talk about the colours and letters they were dropping and playing with!
Supplies
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- Magnetic Letters
- Cardboard tubes
- Masking tape
- Colourful Bowls
- 41 Qt, Clear Sensory Bin (Large) or a IKEA FLISAT Children’s Sensory Table