Valentine's Day Writing Tray

Another inviting way to practise name writing which ties in nicely with celebrating Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day writing tray.

What you need:

- heart shaped container or cake mould

- heart-themed pen or straw

- thick paint brush for sweeping the salt

- small card hearts

- marker pen

- dyed salt (1 cup of table salt mixed with 8 drops of red food colouring, squish it together inside a zip lock bag until the colour is evenly distributed and leave it over night to dry)

The activity:

I asked my son to write his name one letter at a time, nice and big in the middle of the salt tray using the heart pen. After each letter he used a thick paint brush to clear the salt. Once he had written his name one letter at a time he tried writing his entire name in the salt. He still struggles with a few letters but it was nice because he could gently brush them out and try again.

This type of activity can be used with different themes by dying the rice various colours and using themed materials. Younger children will enjoy just mark-making in the salt and with older children you could get them writing words or completing simple mathematics sums in the salt.