Veronika is at an exciting stage where she’s mastered shape-recognition games, so we’re moving on to letters! I realized she knows some from others when she grabbed letter puzzle pieces and said she wanted to sleep with “I” and “S” (!) so clearly she’s ready.

It’s great to start with letters in your toddler’s name, since this is often the first word he or she will need to write in preschool. I used just Veronika’s nickname today (V-I-K-A) and placed chunky magnet letters in a zip-top bag. We filled the bag with white rice and then could play a game of I Spy!

“I spy a V,” I told her, and she quickly followed suit, digging through the rice grains to unearth the letters. “An I!” she said.

She thought it was hilarious to see letters in rice, and soon was trotting over to the fridge to add more to our bag.

“Let’s at the red O,” she might say, or the green A, etc. I was so proud to see how many she knew already!

For variation, I then wrote a few letters on index cards and placed these with only a small covering of rice in sandwich-sized zip-top bags.

These were fun because she could swipe the rice aside with a few fingers and reveal the letter underneath.

This was a great first letter-recognition game, and can easily grow with your child.

For preschoolers, try writing early sight words on the index cards instead. For younger kids, draw shapes!