Alphabet Soup

I lead the music in Primary and last Sunday, I came up with the idea to hide the letters in the word "family" in a bowl of dried beans. Sounds exciting, huh? The kids would come up and search for the letters, and each one would stand for a song. Really it's wasn't that great, but the bonus was Grant loved playing with it after church! (Even though he's good at not putting things in his mouth, I definitely have to supervise this activity.) He digs around to find the letters either with his hands or a spoon and squeals each time he finds one. He's learning his letters, colors and numbers, and this is perfect for all three! Plus it's fun and once again, free. The letter beads were from a previous project (they were a couple dollars at Wal-Mart) and the mixture of dried beans were from an activity I did while student teaching a LONG time ago. But if you want to try it, dried beans are less than a dollar for a whole pound. You could use any kind, but I don't recommend lentils--it takes forever to clean them out of the carpet!
Sorry if my posts have been about food and Grant. Let's be honest, that's what takes up a lot of my life! :)