ABC Magnetic Study Tray

School is back in full swing and even though our little kiddos aren't old enough to head to the bus stop just yet I'm trying really hard to carve out time each day for "school".  My little man is so excited to get big so he can go to school so I figured I better jump on that bandwagon and take advantage of the enthusiasm while it lasts.  I can see myself in the not so distant future pulling my hair out trying to get them to "do their homework" only to get a huff and rolled eyes in return... not that I would know anything about that move... OK maybe I did perfect it in my day.  Wow, karma is something isn't it!!!

That being said, my little buddy loves to recite his ABC's but hasn't quite figured out the sight recognition to be able to tell which letter is which. 

        So I took a dollar store cookie sheet, some magnetic letters (also about a buck) and a few left over          scrapbook sticker letters and made a tray to help make the lesson fun.

The stickers worked great and made the project really fast.  Plus, I love how colorful they are!

But if you don't have the stickers on hand you could absolutely use a marker to trace around each letter.  I started to do this but made a huge mess... big shocker precision is not my strong suit!!!  The problem I found  was that my sharpie was too big to fit in the small spaces, so just be sure to use a very fine tipped permanent marker.  Oh and if you start with the marker and change your mind like I did after getting marker all over the tray and the sides of the letter (yes, chalk that first attempt up to an epic project fail)... did you know that a magic eraser cleaning sponge will take permanent marker off of plastic and the metal tray???  Well it does!!! I'm not sure what is in those things (maybe real magic) but they save my rear almost daily!  

My little guy LOVES his letter tray!  This could not have been easier (once I used stickers ;) and it fits perfectly on little laps.  

I think this could also be great for car rides, just put the letter in a little bag and you are set. 

 I put the letter towards the top leaving a space for the extra letters at the bottom, but you could space them out over the entire tray.  My thought was that once he learned all the letters the tray could grow with him and the bottom space could be for spelling words in the future!

Enjoy,