As summer is quickly approaching, I am looking for lots of ways to keep my little ones busy and their minds sharp. Given that my girls both love water, I wanted to find some ways to let them simultaneously play and learn about the alphabet with water.

Whether you’re looking for something to do outside to cool off or simply have some water play fun inside, we’ve found a wide variety of alphabet water play activities to keep you and your kids busy learning!

So many of these activities are low prep and can easily be modified to fit your learners’ needs. For your early learners, you may want to keep things simple by allowing sensory exploration while you guide letter or sound identification. You can extend the alphabet water play with some more challenging literacy skills such as naming beginning or ending sounds, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, or placing letters in alphabetical order.

I can’t wait to add these alphabet water play activities to our summer bucket list! What are you planning for summer learning fun?

Water Play Alphabet Activities

Grab some sidewalk chalk, paint brushes, and a bucket of water to practice ABC handwriting with water just like Coffee Cups and Crayons did.

This ABC water balloon activity from School Time Snippets is sure to be a hit. Literally! Write the alphabet on the sidewalk with chalk and also on some balloons with a marker and start matching the letters or sounds!

Toddler Approved has a fun way to “plant” the alphabet into a garden of letters. As a letter or sound is called out, it gets watered!

Preschoolers and toddlers alike will flip for this hidden alphabet activity from Busy Toddler! Just write some letters with a white crayon onto white paper and let your little detectives find the missing letters with some water colors and a paintbrush!

Thanks to Mom Inspired Life, you just might get your windows cleaned and squeeze in some fun ABC water learning at the same time! Hand your kids a squirt gun and ask them to squirt the letter or sound you call out.

Little Bins for Little Hands shows you how to make an icy alphabet learning tower. Kids will love using spray or squirt bottles to melt the ice away! Once letters and toys are melted, match them to their corresponding sounds.

Do your kids like to help wash the dishes? Or just play with soapy water? Growing Book by Book created a fun way to combine suds and the alphabet with their abc dish washing activity. Grab some washable markers and plastic dishes and get scrubbing!

Go fishing for the alphabet with this ABC fishing game from The Imagination Tree. Once each ball is caught, practice letter matching by placing it its corresponding spot in an egg carton.

Engage little learners with this alphabet soup water play activity from The Letters of Literacy. All you need are some upper and lowercase letters, a large pot or container, and a ladle. While kids are scooping and transferring letters, they are fine tuning those dexterity skills.

This spray bottle ABC activity by Frugal Fun 4 Boys is a great way to practice fine motor and kinesthetic skills. After writing letters on the sidewalk, have kids spray the letter as if they were forming it.
If you can’t make it to a water park, why not create your own alphabet water park at home just like Childhood 101 did?! Let kids’ imaginations run wild as the letters zoom down the slide or splash on the raft!

Looking for an educational way to cool off? Try what Mom Inspired Life did and set up a sprinkler ABC hunt. What a great outdoor gross motor activity!

More Alphabet Activity Ideas

Gross Motor ABC Activities

ABC Sensory Bins

Top 10 Ways to Remember the ABCs

Continue the ABC Learning Indoors

ABC letter mats can be a versatile tool to use in early childhood learning. They can be laminated and used over and over again for letter formation and writing activities. They can also be used to create alphabet books, posters and more. Letter crafts and process art activities related to a letter you are learning can be a fun way for kids to make connections between a letter and something that starts with that beginning sound. In our Alphabet Letter Mats set you’ll find two full sets of alphabet mats to use and tons of ideas for using them. There are over 140 ideas for using the alphabet mats in meaningful ways to reinforce letter recognition and learning letter sounds.

This 181-page resource pack contains the following:

1) Suggestions for Using the Letter Mats-These ideas include ways to use the mats for small group and center activities and can be done for any letter of the alphabet.
2) Process Art Ideas for Each Letter of the Alphabet-60 ideas!
3) Collage and Texture Art Ideas for Each Letter of the Alphabet-54 ideas!
4) Complete sets of alphabet mats in two different font options.