Learning Beginning Writing Skills with a Salt Box

This week we did some writing using some fun materials.  I had big box lids that I poured a layer of coarse salt into and then showed them how they could make letters and shapes in the salt.  Then showed them how they could erase and start over by lightly shaking the lid back and forth.  They thought that was pretty cool.  I was amazed that they wanted to do this for almost 30 minutes! 

I had this activity planned out for the week and then saw a post at Mom Tried It where Kim, a creative stay at home mom, has done the same thing but with flour. I think I will try that next week. We had done shaving cream the week before and that was a lot of fun! I think the kids enjoy feeling these different textures and it is lots more fun then just a pencil and paper. You can use sand, paint, pudding, mud and more!

We are up to the letter J and the number 10 this week so I had them practice those.  Then I would name a letter that we have learned (A-J) and had them write those.  They drew some shapes and Josh practiced making a star.  He really wants to learn how to do that. 

I first saw the idea for writing in salt at Preschool Express .  That has been such a great site for me!  My kids have enjoyed every activity I have planned from there.