How to create wooden letter disks for preschool activities:
First print off the letters. You can download my uppercase and lowercase letters here.
Next I used a 1 1/2″ circle punch to cut out my letters, but you can also use scissors!
Then I ran them through the Xyron Sticker Maker. I then stuck them onto 1 1/2″ wooden disks.
I know some people Modge Podge the disks when done, but I didn’t and they seem to be holding up fine. Well, that’s it! Super easy and fun!
Tip from the trenches: Make a couple copies of commonly used letters as some words contain more than one of the same letter, like cookie for example 🙂
Now go visit my alphabet ideas and have fun learning your letters!
I didn’t want to use the ink to print the letters out, so I saved the white caps from my water bottles and wrote the letters on them with a Sharpie.
FYI: I was just at Staples and found a package of plastic Counting Chips. They’re made by Learning Playground. There are 75 in the package (15 each of red, yellow, green, orange and blue). They were $3.29 in the Teacher Resource section. I’m planning on using these instead of the wood disks and also as counters, pattern chips, etc so they’re multi-functional!
Thank you for this idea! I found them and that worked sooo great!!!!
Love these! Have you ever considered using poker chips instead of the wood? You can get them in bigger bulk in a variety of colors. Just a thought. Also, have you ever considered doing something similar with sight words? Would love to see something of that nature as well!
I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong with these. I purchased the 1 1/2″ wood discs, but when I put them on the page printed out from the LOTW curriculum, they were way too big and I couldn’t fit them on the printed circles where they were supposed to be placed on the spelling page. It would drive me CRAZY if I were the student trying to make the letters fit perfectly on the circles! Am I supposed to change print settings for the worksheets in the curriculum? What did I do wrong?
Since I am on a really tight budget, instead of paying for the wooden discs (they aren’t as cheap as I thought they would be and every little bit adds up), I made mine out of play clay. I did not have to buy anything special as I had flour, salt and craft paint already so the cost was nominal. I rolled out the clay, cut out the circles, baked and then painted them. The letters were written with a Sharpie and I think I will seal them with a spray clear coat to make sure nothing rubs off. They seem very durable and it really only cost me my time.
While that little gadget is pretty cool and honestly pretty inexpensive, I also wanted to share this solution:
http://www.amazon.com/Avery-Self-Adhesive-Removable-Diameter-05410/dp/B00007LVE0/
Avery has several different sizes of circle sticker pages, used with a template for Word or even OpenOffice (That’s free) to make the letter stickers that you could simply stick to the wooden chips or milk caps. It will save lots of time, and depending on where you get your items from, it might save money. As I write this, you get 600 circle stickers in that pack for $6.86. They are 1 inch and will look nice on 1.5 inch disks. Then, you have tons leftover to make “great job!” or whatnot stickers for rewards 🙂
Another tip: Put the lowercase on the opposite side of the chip for the capital letters, and you won’t use as many wooden chips.
Even easier and cheaper than sticker sheets: a sharpie will work just fine. There are even tons of pretty colors now. They even have shiny metallic ink now. If your penmanship is really so terrible, you can still do stickers over your original hand-written letters later!
PS: I actually have a Dymo Labelwriter, which I orginally got half off with a groupon and also use for business that is awesome for making stickers, too!
http://www.amazon.com/DYMO-LABELWRITER-Printer-1752264-Software/dp/B0027JBLV4/
Just a thought…Couldn’t we just use magnet letters and have them place the correct letter on top of the letters in the picture?
I’m making them out of clay anyway, WHAT a cute idea!
I’ve thought about that too but it’s hard (well for me) to find lower case magnetic letters here in Jamaica; they’re all uppercase letters.
i printed these but i cant cut them without running into the next letter. All of the letters are squished into the center of the page
Hi Amber,
When you go to print the file check your printer settings to make sure it is set to print full size and not shrunk down. The file should be a whole page and the letters are close, but not so close that you can’t cut them all out.
Thank you for EVERYTHING! Your Pre-K curriculum is an answer to my prayers!!!!
I just happened to have a pack of 1″ circle disks in my craft stash. Resized it to 66% and it fits perfectly!