Spell Your Name Sensory Bin Hunt

We had a great time with this spell your name sensory bin hunt. It took me about a couple of minutes to set up and we have been using it all week-long.

Teach kids to spell their name or recognize the letters in their name.

Evan has started showing more of an interest in sensory bins lately, so I thought I would make him a simple name hunt sensory bin that would give him some added fine motor practice as well.

While playing with this sensory bin, Evan practiced identifying the letters in his name and then put them in order from left to right. He further developed his small hand muscles by using the tweezers to pick up the tiny letter beads and place them on the tray. Developing small hand muscles is essential to learning to write and doing various other life skills.

Supplies Needed:

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Rice
Small letter beads
A small, shallow bin
Tweezers (we love our gator grabber tweezers, but a clothespin is another option)

I highly recommend the Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set. It includes a gator grabber as well as many other fine motor tools we use very frequently!

Setting Up the Name Sensory Bin

1. Pour a bunch of rice in the bin.

2. Find the letters needed to spell your child’s name multiple times and add them to the bin.

3. Add a bunch of other letter beads to the bin.

4. Mix the rice and beads up.

If you are doing this in the classroom, make sure you have enough beads to spell each child’s name at least once.

Name activity sensory bin for preschoolers.

Spell Your Name Sensory Bin Activity

I told Evan I hid a bunch of letters in his name in the rice bin. It was his job to search through the bin and find the letters in his name. When he found a letter, he needed to use the tweezers to pick up the letter and place it on the tray. The goal was to see how many times he could spell his name.

Use squeezy tweezers to pick beads out of rice. Fine motor practice for kids.

Right away, he started digging around in the rice with his hands. He loves to play in it and enjoys the way it feels in his hands. He soon spotted the letter “V” and knew that letter was in his name. So he grabbed the tweezers and picked up the bead and placed it on the tray. He continued to do this over and over again for letters that were in his name.

Name activities and all about me activities for preschoolers.

Spelling names with letter beads for name recognition and fine motor practice.

As he found letters, he tried to put them in order to spell his name. It wasn’t long before he was able to spell his name completely. He continued looking for letters and was able to spell his name again. He ended up spelling his name twice before giving up to play and dig in the rice. I expected this because the tweezers require lots of focus and quickly tire him out.

However, this bin has been used over and over again since. We’ve even used it to spell other family member’s names. Sometimes, he uses the tweezers and other times he just uses his hands. Either way, he is getting lots of fine motor practice while identifying letters and spelling names!