Alphabet Flower Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Last Updated on March 10, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: This alphabet flower sensory bin is a fun, hands-on way to build toddler and preschool literacy skills!

Reading to toddlers and preschoolers often and providing a print-rich environment are both important for raising readers.

While we don’t formally teach our 2 and 3 year olds how to read, we do provide activities that include the alphabet. These activities are all over the classroom, not just in the reading and writing area.

Adding letters to our sensory bin is one of my favorites, and I’ve done it often. (Scroll down to find my other literacy sensory bins.) It’s exposing our young children to the letters of the alphabet in a playful way, along with other materials.

And even with our 2 year olds, there will be at least 1 child who will recognize a letter or many letters.

Playful learning!

Click here to see other ways we add literacy to our classroom!

Alphabet Flower Sensory Bin for Toddlers and Preschoolers

What we used for this flower sensory bin:

Small baskets
Rice that was dyed brown (see how we dye rice in this post)
Pom poms
Flower baking cups (the ones we used in this post aren’t available anymore, but if I were to do this again, I would use these flower cups as they are more durable)
Pretend flowers
Letter stones
Scoops

Build Literacy Skills with this Flower Sensory Bin

One of the teachers in my preschool made these letter stones. She took a gold Sharpie permanent marker and wrote the letters write on them, making sure she had 1 of each uppercase and lowercase letter.

I love how they blend in with the colors used in this bin!

Note: If you’d rather purchase them, we also use and love these alphabet pebbles.

As with most of our sensory bins, I like to pay attention to texture, adding quite a few variations.

CLICK HERE to see more of our sensory bins!

Our 2 year olds were mostly interested in using the scoops to fill the flowers and baskets with the rice and the letter stones.

However, they were still being exposed to the same letters they see on our alphabet chart, in the names on their placemats and cubbies, and in the books that we read.

Our 3 year olds paid more attention to the letter stones, seeking out familiar letters.

Most worked on spelling their own names, or at least recognizing a few letters in their names.

For all of the children, this was simply a fun way to explore different colors, textures, sizes, and shapes, while also strengthening fine motor skills.