Textured Alphabet Craft

This textured alphabet craft was my answer to the Elmer’s Early Learn’s Academy’s Pin and Win Contest. Elmer’s contacted me to let me know about two new products – Early Learner’s Glue Pens and Glue Sticks. They have created these new products to equip preschool age kids with the tools to get them learning and crafting. The triangular shape teaches them proper writing grip. These products go on purple but dry clear so kids know exactly where they placed the glue. It is low mess and easy clean up for kids…or more likely, moms and teachers. It gives them “more control, more independence and more confidence” as they are tackling new skills in learning and creating. I was given the task to use the new glue stick and glue pen provided to me along with a bunch of craft materials sent to my door to create “an educational craft with preschool-age kids in mind.” I am competing against 14 other bloggers to see who can get the most pins from this craft, so I’m calling on you to help me out with this one! The Pin you MUST use to help me with this is https://www.pinterest.com/pin/36943659417048596/ Just click there and pin to show your love.

It was so fun to open my kit to discover all the fun crafting supplies. You can imagine my kids’ faces as their peered into the fun package that arrived at our door. Looking down into the box myself, I had to start thinking about what kind of craft I wanted to create with the preschool child in mind. I came up with the idea of making a textured alphabet with my kids. This would help them work on learning their letters through tracing with glue, laying down different textures and then letting them trace over the textures with their fingers. Tactile learning can be so beneficial for kids.

Here is a picture of Elmer’s new product. I’d also encourage you to check out their YouTube video that highlights all of the great things about these two washable glue items. It helps give you insight into Elmer’s desire to really create a product with your 3-5 year old child in mind.

There was a little bit of prep involved for me, but it was well worth it. The activity was not only fun and a great learning experience, but it also kept them quite involved for a while. I took a piece of tagboard and drew straight lines across the paper. The letters in my printable are 2.5 inches tall, so I did my lines 2.75-3 inches apart. I did a total of 4 lines, which would have 6-7 letters on each line.

I made a printable of the alphabet for you so that you can easily print out every letter that is the perfect size for decorating with texture. Once you print these out, you will want to cut them all out. Older kids can help with this too. They don’t need to be cut out perfectly since they will be covered in the end.

If you want to make it look nice, you can use an Exacto-knife to cut out the center parts of letters.

Kenzie was in charge of the next task. I had her take the letters and begin setting them out on the tagboard. This, alone, is a great learning opportunity for preschool age children. To be able to lay out the letters in alphabetical order is a task in and of itself.

The next task was to glue the letters down. Both Kenzie (age 4) and Corban (almost 3) were able to use the glue stick to glue down the letters to the tagboard. The purple color was helpful to know where the glue started.

Corban had a lot of fun being able to participate. This glue stick says for ages 3+, so make sure to monitor your kids closely. Even if it is non-toxic, you don’t want your kids eating a glue stick.

Kenzie was able to line up the letters on the penciled lines. I find that glue sticks are really the best product to use for paper crafts.

Then, we were able to move on to creating the texture with all the craft supplies. You can use whatever you want for texture, but we used (in order from A-Z) buttons, pom poms, jewels, feathers, lace trim, google eyes, tissue paper squares bunched up, Cheerios, yarn, felt squares, washi tape, colored tongue depressors, color crayons, rice, bendy furry pipe cleaner (first time seeing these), letter beads, Froot Loops, foam heart stickers, plastic Perler beads, textured buttons, sequins, pipe cleaners, glitter, silver paper, dot paint and confetti (made by the kids with a hole punch and construction paper). Elmer’s had provided me with a bunch of crafting supplies, like the ones pictured above.

Both kids were able to use the glue pen and stick down the different textures to each letter. I found the glue pen was a really great product for getting things with texture to stick. It has a mesh tip that lets out enough glue to make it work.

As you can see, the Elmer’s glue pen gives good coverage. This kind of work really is great for teaching kids to trace their letters. Of course, you can work on letter names and sounds throughout the activity.

The kids took turn gluing and sticking on each letter.

When Abby arrived home from school, she wanted to jump right in and help with the activity. I was excited to be able to use some amount of every single thing given to me in the Elmer’s Early Learners Activity Box.