You know the kiddos that just need to move their bodies. They don’t sit still for very long, they like full-body activities like playground time, sports and free play. This activity for learning letters and numbers is a way to harness that kiddo energy and channel it into learning skills.

The hammering activity to learn letters and numbers teaches eye hand coordination, safety with tools, letters, numbers and can even be used as a spelling activity. But, before I get ahead of myself. Let’s dive in to how this activity can be set up and safety steps to take to keep everyone safe.

Hammering Letters and Numbers Learning Activity for Kids Who Need to Move

I created this simple activity for my oldest son when he was in kindergarten. I was with him the whole time he was using the hammer for this. That is essential when letting kids use tools: supervision! It’s important to teach your child safety boundaries as well before you even let them hold the hammer. Explain that they can only use the hammer to hit the nails in the boards. They cannot hit anyone with the hammer and they have to keep their fingers away from the hammer too. Supervise this one.

First I gathered supplies, created the board he was going to work on and show him how to use the hammer to hit a nail.

Supplies:

Scrap wood pieces (A fence picket works well and is cheap. Cut into multiple 12-inch pieces to do more than one letter.)

Marker

Nails

Hammer

Step 1: Draw the outline of a letter or number on the piece of wood. Make it as large as you can. We did the first letter of my son’s name and his age at the time.

Step 2: There are two options for this step.

Option A-Hammer nails along the outline of the letter just to start them. Do not hammer them all the way in. Your child will then hit the nails into the board the rest of the way. You are just starting them all.

Option B- Make dots along the letter or number to mark where the nails will be placed. Show your child how to place a nail on the dots along the letter outline and carefully hammer it into the wood as far as they can hit it into the wood.

You can use this hammering letters or numbers activity along with our letter of the day activities in our preschool curriculum.

If you have multiple children, they can each hammer nails into the first letter of their name. Or, you can write their name on a fence picket and they can hammer nails to spell out their entire name.

This one lets kids bang (like our Bang the Box activity) and teaches learning concepts they need to know before kindergarten. It’s a fun way to let kids do some work with tools while you watch to keep them safe.

Explore our full free preschool curriculum and get the free planning kit to start teaching preschool at home this school year.