I love finding or creating items that can be used for lots of different educational activities. When I stumbled on this set of alphabet clothespins in the Target Dollar Spot, I was really excited about all of the possibilities. We had a lot of fun playing letter recognition games with these. In addition to letter recognition and fine motor skills, these easy to make manipulatives can help kids work on a variety of skills.

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Creating Letter Pins

While I found this set at Target, I was really excited at how easy these would be to make for busy bags. If you are primarily using these for spelling activities, I would advise making multiple clips of most letters so kids will have the opportunity to create longer words.

All you need to create your own is a set of mini clothespins and foam alphabet stickers. First, figure out how many of each letter that you would like. Attach the letter stickers to the handle end of the clothespins. To ensure the letters stay attached, I would add an additional dab of glue to the back of the letters before attaching them to the clothespins.

How to Use Them

Letter Hunt – Use your letter clips on a scavenger hunt around the room! Set out one set of the alphabet clips. Have kids clip the letters onto things that start with that letter. See if they can use all of their letters in one room.

Upper and Lower Case Matching – Write out the alphabet in lower case letters on a set of index cards or pieces of cardstock. Have kids clip their upper case letter clips to the cards with the appropriate lower case letters.

Letter Matching – Use a set of premade flashcards, or print out a set of simple pictures that kids will recognize. Have kids clip their letter clips to the card that shows an item starting with that letter.

Word Building – Provide kids with a pipe cleaner and a set of letter clips. Have kids clip the letters to the pipe cleaner to build words.

Spelling Cards – Using a set of flashcards or index cards with sight words, encourage kids to find the correct letter clips and build the word on the edge of the card.

There are so many fun ways that you can use these simple clips to encourage letter recognition and word building skills. How would you use these in your home or classroom? Share in the comments below!

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