Water Bead Letter Matching Game for the Light Table

Do your kids love water beads? Are they beginning to learn letters? Then this water bead letter matching game is perfect for them!

It’s a simple activity that mixes sensory play with letter recognition practice and fine motor skill development. We used this on the light table but it’s also fun off the light table if you don’t have one. 

This activity is part of our Light and Reflections series, a series of hands-on kids activities that focus on learning with light play and/or mirrors!  This month our theme is literacy and since we’ve just begun working on our letter recognition I put together this simple water bead letter matching game for my daycare kids.

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Water Bead Letter Matching Game

As you’ll notice in the photos I don’t follow alphabet order when starting letter recognition with my toddlers and preschoolers.  We start with letters based on their phonetic sounds rather than their order in the alphabet and these five (S, M, A, C, T) are the ones I’ve decided to start with.  I generally start by introducing four or five letters and then gradually adding more.

For this activity, I used our glass tile/gems letters (instructions below) and a water bead sensory box.  They are both very easy to make and provides hours of fun and learning.

Sensory Bin Supplies:

• Water beads
• Light Table/Panel
• Transparency Film (I just laminated an empty lamination pouch and it worked great)
• Dry Erase Marker

Using a dry erase marker and transparent sheet, create a template with letters that the kids can match the glass gems to after they find them in the water bead bin.  

Some dry erase markers wipe off easier than others and ours wipe off very easily so I made my template on the back so it wouldn’t wipe off the second the girls put a gem on it but that meant I had to make some of the letters backwards (eek!).  My backward “S” took a few tries but I managed to get it and as a result, the girls had no problems with it wiping off when they were using it.

I’ve had the letter tiles ready to go for quite some time and this was the perfect activity to break them out for.

Letter Tiles/Gems Supplies:

• Glass Gems (larger) and/or Tiles (I got our large glass gems at the Dollar Tree)
• Letter Stickers (or you could make some like these at And Next Comes L)
• Mod Podge

All the stickers I could find at the time had a white or pearly colored backing (aka the sticky side) so I used a bit of mod podge on the back of the gems and tiles then just placed the dark, non-sticky side down the tiles/gems to dry.  Super easy.

I set out some tongs for my toddlers to use with this sensory bin but they just wanted to use their fingers with the water beads and tiles 🙂

What’s more fun than digging around in water beads? My daughter thought this was sooo much fun. She worked very hard on each letter and was so excited when she got them all!

Next month our Light & Reflections Series will be back with music and movement-related activities. Check out our upcoming themes below and don’t forget to pop over and see what fun activities Dyan, Devany, & Katie had fun exploring this week.

Alphabet Sorting on the Light Table from And Next Comes L
Helping Kids Learn Their Name with Personalized Suncatchers from Happily Ever Mom
Mirror Literacy: Exploring Symmetry in Letters from Still Playing School

Looking for more crafts and activities? Check out our index for 100+ plus kids activities! Find activities by theme, materials, skills, age and much more!