It’s back to school time!

Are your kids excited for the new school year to begin? Or are they dreading the end of Summer?

Tbh, even as parents of a students, we have mixed emotions about this time of year. We will always love newly sharpened pencils, notebooks with fresh pages, and the anticipating of learning new things! But it’s also hard to say goodbye to the lazy days of Summer, family vacations, and time spent outside. 

One of the best ways we’ve found to motivate kids to embrace a new school year is to get them excited about the things they’re going to learn! Something that we love about our modern magnetic letters is that they’re fun to use, stylish for your home or classroom, and also can be used as a powerful learning tool. Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, or teacher, we know you’ll love seeing your kids light up as new learning concepts click when they arrange brightly colored letters into words, patterns, or designs. 

To get you started with using magnetic letters, we’re sharing five educational activities that are so fun, your students might just forget that they’re educational. Encouraging students to develop their language and literacy skills while having a great time sounds like a win-win to us!

Create a storytelling station in your home or classroom where kids can rearrange alphabet magnets into sentences. Encourage them to create imaginative tales or give them a story prompt to get them started! Bonus: they’ll be developing their imagination while reinforcing their understanding of grammar and syntax!

This one is perfect for kinesthetic learners or students with extra sensory needs. Fill a bin with different materials (e.g. rice, sand, beans, etc.), then hide alphabet magnets within the sensory material. Ask children to find the letters, using either tools or their hands. Give them a task such as sorting them by color or arranging them in alphabetical order as they uncover new letters.

If you think that fun with magnetic letters is only about creating words, think again! Magnetic letters can be used for color recognition, shape recognition, or to create beautiful art! Have your students choose a shape or design and then arrange their magnetic letters on a magnetic letter board to create it. For example, yellow and orange letters could become a sun or a colorful array of letters could become a rainbow!

This one is a twist on the classic spelling bee! Give your students sets of alphabet magnets to use while hosting a spelling bee. Have them spell out the word with magnetic letters first, then repeat the word aloud. By manipulating the letters and also speaking aloud, you’ll be encouraging students to use various learning styles and reinforcing their memory of the words.

Add an element of competition and speed with a word race! Divide your students into teams and provide each team with a set of alphabet magnets. When you call out a word, each team must race to build the word using their magnetic letters. The first team to spell the word correctly gets the point!

There you go… five fun (and educational) activities to try in your classroom or educational setting this school year! 

Each of these creative activities can be adapted based on the age and developmental level of the children participating, making learning with alphabet magnets enjoyable and beneficial for all.

We’d love to know which activities you try, and which ones your students love the most! Tag us in your pictures on social media or send us a message to let us know!