Plasticine Letter Stamping: Literacy Game for Kids

Whether you have kids in your life who are at the pre-writing stage or who are working on letter recognition, spelling or phonics, these little DIY letter stamps are so simple to make and can be used in hundreds of fun ways to encourage all of these skills. 

What you'll need:

• wooden blocks 
• adhesive foam letters
• modelling clay/plasticine/play dough
• baby powder (or cornstarch)
• glue stick
• craft knife (optional)

Here's how you do it.

1. Affix the adhesive foam letters to your wooden blocks, making sure to apply one of every letter of the alphabet. 

2. Some letters will need to be glued down in the opposite direction so that they come out the right way. These letters are: B, C, F, G, J, K, L, N, P, Q, R, S, Z. Flip these letters over and use the glue stick to glue these in place. Allow to dry. Once the letters are firmly in place, you can de-stick the adhesive on those that have been reversed with a thin coating of baby powder or cornstarch.

3. Gather your plasticine and you're ready to play! There are lots of different ways to play with these letter stamps. 

Younger kids can work on stamping out their name or they can work on letter recognition from names or words that you've stamped in the clay.

Older kids can fill in the blanks to create words you've stamped out,

or they can match up single letters with word suffixes to create sets of rhyming words.

You could also stamp out mad libs, place cards for supper or whatever comes to mind. Part of the fun of this activity is just handing over the blocks and letting the kids play however they'd like.

Do you have any ideas on how you could use these letter stamping blocks? In the comments below, share with us how you would use these for literacy-based play!