Set up this fun glow in the dark letter hunt literacy activity because your children will really love it. It’s a unique approach to getting them to build on their knowledge of the alphabet. It challenges them to identify each letter independently and not in their usual sequence. Adding tweezers can also increase the level of difficulty and encourage children to build on their fine motor skills. Hopefully you can find an opportunity to give this literacy activity a go with your child.
My preschooler Possum (aged 4.5 years) is very enthusiastic about learning letters. She is often found arranging our magnetic set on the fridge into form make believe words and sentences. To help her develop her growing interest and knowledge to learn the letter name and sound of each letter I came up with this fun idea. Lets me honest, who doesn’t love something that glows in the dark!
Recommended age: 5 years+
(Active supervision is required on for this activity)
Glow in the dark letter hunt literacy activity
To set up this glow in the dark letter hunt literacy activity you will need –
- Container of rice
- Glow in the Dark letters
Charge your glow in the dark letters by placing them in direct sunlight for at least an hour and then hide them into a tub of rice. I reused the rice I had stored away from our ‘Digging for Worms’ activity as the dark brown colour really worked well to disguise the glowing letters.
Fine Motor Skills
To help build on Possum’s fine motor skills, I gave her a plastic tweezer to use to sift through the rice and locate each letter. She thought it was lots of fun and it was a good way to pace the speed at which each letter was discovered. If she’d used her hands she would more than likely uncover multiple letters, which could be quite distracting and take away from the learning purpose.
Learning letters and making connections
All children, regardless of age, learn in different ways and at a different speeds. For Possum, who is super interested in knowing more about letter names and sounds, I encourage her to build on existing knowledge and try to do the following with each letter –
- Letter sound – /b/ (short sound)
- Letter name – B or ‘bee’ (long sound)
- Name something that starts with that letter – basketball
Of course this is not an expectation for Possum to know this at her age, I am taking advantage of her interest and her enthusiasm to complete the activity and using it as a learning opportunity. The moment she felt ‘tested’ then I stopped, pulled back and just let her have fun.
Children love things that glow in the dark and this fun activity has an exciting literacy element to it. Using tweezers for an added challenge, children will have a great time sifting and digging through the rice to discover and read each letter of the alphabet as it appears. This is one activity they will love doing over and over again.
Do your children love things that glow in the dark?
Here are some more ideas you’ll want to check out –
Great value ebooks featuring Laughing Kids Learn