25 Ways to Use Magnetic Letters at Home

1. LETTER PLAY Encourage children to play with the magnetic letters on the refrigerator or on a
table. Playing with letters allows children to learn more about how they look.
2. MAKING NAMES A child’s name is the most important word. Have children make their names
several times, mixing up the letters, making their names, and checking them with their names written
on a card.
3. LETTER MATCH Invite children to find other letters that look exactly the same as a letter in their
name (for example, place an m on the refrigerator and have the child find all the letters that look like
it). They don’t need to know the letter name.
4. NAME GAME Have children make names of friends or family. Have them make the name, mix the
letters, and make the names several times.
5. MAKING WORDS Make a simple word like mom or dad or sun and have your child make the same
word by matching each letter below the model (sun – s-u-n).
6. ALPHABET TRAIN Have your child put the lowercase magnetic letters in the order of the alphabet.
Then they can point to them and sing the alphabet song. Have them repeat the process with
uppercase letters.
7. CONSONANT/VOWEL SORT Have children sort the consonant letters and the vowel letters.
8. FEATURE SORT Have children sort letters in a variety of ways – for example, letters with long
sticks and letters with short sticks, letters with circles and letters with no circles, letters with tunnels
and letters with dots, letters with slanted sticks and letters with straight sticks.
9. COLOR SORT Have children sort all the red, blue, green, yellow letters.
10. UPPERCASE/LOWERCASE MATCH Have children match the uppercase letters with the
lowercase form.
11. WRITING LETTERS Have children select ten different letters and write each letter on a paper.
They can use the magnetic letter as a model.
12. WRITING WORDS Have children make five simple words (such as dog, fun, big, hat, like, sit ) and
then write them on a sheet of paper.
13. MAKING FOOD WORDS Make some words that identify food – for example, bun, corn, rice. Have
children draw pictures of each, mix the letters, and make the words again.
14. MAKING COLOR WORDS Give children a list of color words with an item made in that color as a
picture support (for example, a red ball). Have children make the color word with magnetic letters
using the model, mix the letters, and make it again several times.
15. MAKING NUMBER WORDS Give children a list of numerals with the number word next to each.
Have children make the word and mix the letters two or three times.
16. LETTER NAMES Specify a color and have children take one colored letter at a time and say the
letter name.