The other day I was browsing the pasta aisle of my grocery store (because pasta is a preschooler’s best friend), and I came across this bag of alphabet pasta for only 50 cents! I had to have it. Well, I had to have six of them to be exact…four for an alphabet sensory bin and two for actual eating 😉 Four bags wouldn’t be enough to fill our typical sensory tub, but when mixed with our rice bin it would be perfect for adding alphabet recognition fun into our regular playtime!
Materials to make an Alphabet Sensory Bin
White rice
Alphabet Pasta
Hand sanitizer and food coloring (to dye the alphabet pasta)
Various small tools to place in the sensory bin (cups, spoons, small bowls, scoopers, etc.)
First you’ll want to dye your alphabet pasta (I have a simple method to dye rice or pasta using hand sanitizer and food coloring here). I chose to leave the rice in our bin un-dyed so that the alphabet letters would really stand out.
Read more: 20+ hands on Alphabet activities here!
I put the sensory bin on a mat to keep everything neat. This way, any rice/pasta that spills over could be easily poured back into the bin!
Read more: 25+ Amazing Tools for Learning the Alphabet!
The itty-bitty alphabet letters are about the same size as the rice, and they *almost* went unnoticed by my preschoolers…
…but upon closer inspection my kids realized the alphabet surprise mixed into the bin and were ecstatic to play!
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They made me delicious servings of word cake, letter lattes, and of course alphabet soup! Searching for letters through the bin of rice provided great fine motor practice, and using the scooping tools was an awesome way to work on pre-scissor skills!
More activities you’ll love!
Parachute Man Alphabet Activity
Free Printable Alphabet Coloring Pages
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