Exposing children to the alphabet in a creative way can help make learning letter recognition and letter sounds fun! Here’s a spring-inspired alphabet activity that provides an opportunity for children to play and interact with ABC’s!
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Learning the ABC’s with an Alphabet Flower Garden Activity
Open-ended ABC activities can be fun for children of all ages. My two year old is in the process of learning his letters and sounds, while my five year old is working on spelling. Our alphabet flower garden provided them both with the opportunity to learn individual literacy skills through play! (This post contains affiliate links.)
Materials for the Alphabet Flower Garden
- Clay pots in various sizes
- Dry black beans
- Mini wood craft sticks (I received mine from Craftprojectideas.com )
- Green Liquid Watercolor Paint
or green food coloring (optional)
- Flower stickers
- Wite-Out pen or black sharpie
- Tray or cookie sheet
- Green felt
Setting up the Alphabet Flower Garden
1. Start by creating your flowers.
- I wanted my flower stems to be green so I soaked the mini craft sticks in green Liquid Watercolor Paint overnight. The next day I rinsed them in water and placed them on some paper towels to dry. This step is completely optional. The flowers look just as nice when left as natural wood!
- Write one letter of the alphabet toward the bottom of each stick using a Wite-Out pen (so the letters stand out). If you did not dye your craft sticks, a black sharpie should work fine.
- Place one flower sticker at the top of each stick.
2. Now you’re ready to prepare the garden.
- Line a tray or cookie sheet with green felt. The felt helps to keep the pots from sliding around and adds some color. The tray will help catch stray beans.
- Fill each clay pot with dry black beans and place the pots on the tray. (You could also use a different variety of beans, rice, or even play dough like Fun-A-Day! did with their Plant the Flowers Math Game!)
- Add your letter flowers to the pots by pushing them into the beans.
Playing with the Alphabet Flower Garden
Both kids were so excited to discover the alphabet flower garden waiting for them!
Once Lucy discovered the letters on the flower stems, she began creating all kinds of activities! She made up a rhyme she’d repeat over and over as she made the flowers jump from one pot to another. She also enjoyed spelling her name, seeing how many words she could create, and even creating patterns!
Theo has really been interested in spelling his name lately so I create a mini name activity using the alphabet garden. On one of the pots I wrote his name.
I put the four flowers with the letters in his name in the pot.
Theo loved ‘picking’ the flowers and putting them in order to spell his name!
Other Activities You Can Do with the Alphabet Flower Garden
- Create patterns with the flowers.
- Use the pots and flowers to practice skip counting by various numbers.
- Put all the flowers in ABC order.
- Sort the flowers.
We left this alphabet activity out for quite some time. Both kids would go back to it often to play and learn!
Check out our ebook ABCs and 123s! You’ll find 40+ ways to encourage children to explore letters and numbers through play!
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Shaunna @ Fantastic Fun and Learning says
March 6, 2014 at 5:13 amOh how I love this! The “surprise” of pulling up each letter makes it so much fun.
Mary Catherine says
March 6, 2014 at 12:29 pmWhat an awesome activity, Chelsey! I plan on adding this to my flowers and plants theme for preschool. I can see so many extensions for using it with my son, who’s in first grade. And I ADORE the name pot just for Theo!! I envision having little flowerpots in my classroom window . . . with every child’s name!
Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest says
March 6, 2014 at 5:34 pmThis is so sweet Chelsey! I especially love Theo’s version. Great idea!!
Amparo Leon says
March 6, 2014 at 6:42 pmExcellent activity. I love the name pot!!!, I’m going to do it with every child in my three year old classroom, especially at this time when they are learning how to write their names. I’m sure this activity is going to help them a lot.
Chelsey says
March 6, 2014 at 7:43 pmThanks so much! I hope they all enjoy it!! 🙂
Jen says
March 9, 2014 at 5:17 amThis is adorable! Pinning 🙂 I guess I need to go shopping for flower stickers this weekend!
Laurie says
March 10, 2014 at 10:19 amThis is really fun! Pinning. 🙂
Amy @ The Connection We Share says
March 10, 2014 at 8:59 pmThis is SO CUTE!!! Love it! I love that you suggested other ways of playing with this =)
Kristan Price says
March 12, 2014 at 6:08 pmI love this activity! We will be picking up flower pots soon to make something similar! So inspiring!
Cathy says
March 15, 2014 at 4:42 pmI think this is a great idea. Another thing you could use are numbers and some arithmetic symbols, like plus, minus, divide, and multiply. Then the kid could use the numbers and symbols to solve arithmetic problems.
Chelsey says
March 15, 2014 at 5:45 pmLove that idea, Cathy!
Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says
March 16, 2014 at 3:03 pmTerrific idea. I am featuring this post in my After School Round Up tomorrow.
Jill says
March 16, 2014 at 7:14 pmI think this is a wonderful activity to welcome spring!
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
Thaleia (@Something2Offer) says
March 17, 2014 at 5:07 amSuper Cute! I just put on my to-do list a 5 Day series about Homemade Alphabet learning and manipulatives. This will be awesome addition to the long list I have acquired. Thanks for linking up to the Thoughtful Spot Blog Hop. Hope to see you next week!
Mars M. says
March 17, 2014 at 4:19 pmWhat a lovely idea! They brighten up the room! I must do something like this for our classroom. 🙂
Mars M.
http://www.montessoriinmars.blogspot.com
Ashley says
March 19, 2014 at 5:13 amWhat an adorable idea! Featured your little gardens on Mom’s Library!
stephanie says
March 23, 2014 at 7:26 pmSo sweet! Thanks for sharing at After School!
tenderfootmom says
March 10, 2016 at 1:44 pmSuch a cute spring time activity x