Although many Christmas activities focus on arts and crafts, it is also a season that lends itself to festive related learning activities. Take this “Find The Magnetic Letter” Christmas Sensory Bin Game.
Emma from Adventures of Adam has managed to combine Christmas, literacy and science all in one activity!
Find The Magnetic Letter Christmas Sensory Bin
I wanted a festive way that my son could practice matching his lowercase and uppercase letters. When I spotted a phonic Christmas Tree printable on Twinkl, I knew it would be perfect for our activity. I printed the sheet, backed it onto green card, laminated it so it could be used time and time again and stuck it onto a baking tray.
Next I needed some Christmas baubles. Transparent Bingo chips were the perfect size to cover the lowercase letters on our Phonics Christmas Tree. They just happened to be magnetic too. With a range of rainbow colors, the Bingo chips made wonderful baubles. Using a permanent marker pen, I wrote out the alphabet in capital letters on 26 of the Bingo chips. The rest I left as they were.
To create our Christmas tree, I decided to fill a Christmas Tree Cake Pan with green colored rice. Turning our economy long grain rice green was easy. I poured 1KG of rice and several squirts of green paint into a bowl and mixed the two ingredients together thoroughly. I placed the coloured rice onto a tray covered in baking paper and left it to dry overnight. The next day we had a wonderful substance to fill our Christmas Tree. I hid the majority of our Bingo chips inside the rice and then decorated the tree with a remaining few on top.
Finally we needed a Magnetic Wand in order to find our Magnetic Christmas Letters. I placed all of the resources on the table and explained the activity to my son.
First Adam had to place the magnetic wand slightly above the Christmas tree and let the magnetic wand “catch” the Bingo chip baubles. Next he had to sort through the baubles to find the ones with capital letters. Adam had to match the uppercase letter bauble to the phonic Christmas Tree and place the bauble on top of the corresponding lowercase letter.
Once the Christmas baubles from the top of the Christmas tree had been matched Adam had to locate the rest of the baubles. He did this by pushing the magnetic wand into the rice and moving it around. When he pulled out the wand it was covered in Bingo chips. Adam sorted through the baubles again and matched the letters together. He repeated this process until all of the magnetic Christmas bauble letters had been found.
Adam was captivated by the magnetic wand. As soon as he had matched the entire Christmas tree with the correct letters, he wanted me to hide the Christmas baubles again.
Our “Find The Magnetic Christmas Letter” game is an activity I can see being used many times over the festive period!
Don’t miss out on my other Christmas Family Fun ideas for all ages (including grown-ups)!
About Emma: During a difficult pregnancy suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) Emma vowed to make every day an adventure once she had recovered. Adventures of Adam is the outcome of completing a 100 day play challenge with her toddler as part of that promise. Emma, who is a trainedPrimary School Teacher, has a section dedicated to HG friendly play activities so that Mums can still be part of their children’s play whilst they are ill.
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