Salt tray writing is a fun way for preschoolers to practice making their letters and numbers! Little kids love to touch stuff, so let’s let them with this fun activity! All you need is a tray/pie tin/round cake pan and table salt. Several years ago I discovered this activity and immediately went out and bought way too much salt! You only need to cover the bottom of the tray and really didn’t take that much salt. I still have 2 unopened salt containers –oops.
We used a round cake pan for our “tray.” I dumped some salt until the bottom of the pan was completely covered. I asked my son if he could make the letter A and he immediately made an A. Then he asked if he could make other letters! Absolutely!!! I picked up the pan and gently swished it from side to side so that the A disappeared and salt covered the whole bottom again. My son started making lots of letters and liked being the one to swish to pan after each letter. We practiced uppercase and lowercase letters.
Now that I knew that making letters in the salt tray was something he enjoyed, I asked him to make numbers. He did a great job with his numbers! This activity was a lot of fun and added variety to learning letters and numbers.
In between salt tray writing practice, I kept the tray in a cupboard. When it started to look yucky, I dumped the salt, washed the pan, and then added new salt. As long as your kiddo washes their hands before this activity, your salt should be usable for a while.