The keepsake jars looked like the most elaborate Letter K activity of the week, but the children made them with a few simple materials. That mix of a beautiful setup and genuinely hands-on work carried through the rest of our Letter K activities.
1. Letter K Sensory Bin
Rice and alphabet cards are one of my simplest repeat sensory-bin setups. Some children focus on matching uppercase and lowercase letters, while others use the cards as characters or turn the rice into “rain.” The materials leave room for both letter practice and the kind of play the children invent for themselves.
Use the Letter K alphabet cards for this activity.
2. Kabob Fine-Motor Sensory Play
This kabob invitation is easy to change from year to year. I have used marshmallows, gummy candies, and oversized shape beads. Orange rice, dried red pasta, and yellow pasta wheels created the pretend fire underneath; torn red, orange, and yellow tissue paper works too.
Children can thread the pieces onto blunt craft sticks, thick pipe cleaners, or another classroom-safe base. The repeated grasping and threading adds fine-motor work without turning the activity into a worksheet.
3. Kitchen Scavenger Hunt
I placed the Letter K picture cards inside small toy trash cans from the dollar store, which made a familiar scavenger hunt feel completely new. Children opened each container, found a card, and matched it to the corresponding picture on their page.
I prepare the alphabet scavenger hunts ahead of time, then change the way the cards are hidden or displayed. That keeps the activity familiar enough for children to work independently while still giving them something new to investigate.
The A–Z alphabet scavenger hunt includes the Letter K page and matching picture cards.
4. Kaleidoscope Vision Activity
This quick visual activity gives children a chance to notice how colors and patterns change when viewed through a kaleidoscope. Let them look, turn the kaleidoscope, compare what they see, and describe the shapes or colors that stand out.
The free kaleidoscope vision page is available below.
5. Keepsake Jars
This setup looked much more complicated than it actually was. I used small corked jars, pink rock salt, olive leaves, a wooden spoon, and a mortar and pestle. A small plastic container or sealed bag can replace the jar if that works better for your classroom.
The children spooned the salt into the mortar, crushed it with the pestle, tore the leaves, and added everything to their containers. Once the jars were finished, we sealed them and attached them to the keepsake cards. The activity combined careful transferring, crushing, tearing, and conversation in one calm invitation.
6. Kinetic Sand Cubes
Five square magnetic tiles and a large amount of kinetic sand were enough for this building challenge. Children first made an open box with the tiles, packed it with sand, and pressed the final tile onto the top. When they lifted the tiles away, they had created a kinetic-sand cube.
There was no single perfect result. Children adjusted the amount of sand, rebuilt the box, and tried again when the cube crumbled, naturally bringing persistence and problem-solving into the play.
7. Kingdom Loose-Parts Play
For the kingdom invitation, I offered several scene mats with wooden trees, people, gnomes, buttons, dragons, stones, potpourri, and knights. I try to include at least five loose parts with different textures, sizes, and shapes, then step back and let the children decide what belongs in their kingdom.
When children ask what they are supposed to make, I ask what they notice and what they think the materials could become. Children from about two to five used the same setup in very different ways, which is exactly the point of open-ended play.
Explore the open-ended loose-parts scenes used for invitations like this one.
Continue Letter K Learning
Kindhearted Kid With K, from my ABC Discovery Series, pairs naturally with these activities and carries Letter K vocabulary into story time.
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