Creative Activities (brought to you by Miss Gahagan!)

Activity 1 - Arctic Salt Tray

Arctic Salt Tray Learning Goals

While this tray can be used for a variety of activities, these were my main objectives for the activity:

• To encourage mark making and letter formation
• Reinforce left-to-right progression when writing
• Practice writing different shapes, lines, and letters
• Give the children a tactile sensory experience
• Get some conversations going about Arctic animals and writing

Materials We Used

We poured salt, sugar or flour on to a baking tray. You could use fingers, cotton buds, or small paintbrushes to make the marks. I kept the snow writing tray pretty simple. Just enough to give the children sensory input while adding a few Arctic-themed items.

You can definitely change things up a bit depending on your own preferences.

Activity 2 - Snowman Name

How to Make a Name Snowman

Each letter in their first names would have its own “snowball” (white paper circle).  The face of the name snowman would also get one snowball.

We started by making the snowman’s head first. We had upside-down hats, wiggly eyes on hats, huge button noses, and so many more interesting creations.  It’s always nice to see each child’s personality and individuality come across in activities like this.

Once the snowman faces and hats were complete, I had each child write the letters in their name on “snowballs”.  The children did a wonderful job writing just one letter on each circle. Remember we only use capital letters at the start of our name.