Simple Sensory Play with Salt Tray

Why would you need crayons, pencils, paper, white board to draw when you can have more fun with Salt Tray! Draw pictures, write letters, create patterns, and practice writing names with this simple tray.

The greatest thing about this Salt Tray is it is cheap to setup, educational, you will find all the items around the home and trust me it will entertain your little one for hours! This is a great fun activity for kids of all ages.

You just need a tray/plate and salt. You can also use -

• The lid of a plastic tub or container.
• Cardboard box
• Medium Plastic Container that has low sides

Before introducing the salt tray as a name or letter writing activity, I let Medha spend time exploring the salt trays in different ways like scooping, pouring, and moving the salt around in other ways and with other tools.

She made some impressions with a round cap too. She loved the impressions occurring on salt :) And then I asked her to write the letters I shout. She is able to write few of letters, so I had shouted only those. like 

A, C. D. E, F, H, I, L, M, O, P, T, U, W, X.  She was thrilled to write in the salt as I guess she is bored of writing them on her books and white board. :)  Apart from the letters which are having more curves, she is able to write rest of them. Ofcourse she still need some more practice. 

If your kids are older, you can use the same for Words practice and names practice. I am sure they will love doing it. 

And also we did pattern making in salt tray (Sorry I don't have the pictures) I made a pattern on a paper and asked her to do the same in Salt Tray. Write on a paper One circle, One Line, One Circle, One Line. (O|O|) something like this and ask them to write the same in salt tray. You can try various patterns like this. 

While doing this activity, you talk to your child about the texture of salt and color and taste etc. Prefer to use fingers to write in the salt tray, it adds sensory experience.

Learning Benefits of Salt Tray

• Pre-Writing Skills
• Hand-Eye Coordination
• Cause and Effect

Lately I found another useful activity with Salt Tray to teach your kids about Shapes. Read the details here. 

On a lighter note, for people who are wondering why no posts more than a week, thanks for thinking about me. I was not keeping well, with office and kid's work I couldn't get time to manage blogging a post.