When starting my career in education, I never imagined that something as simple as a mini eraser could be such a great learning tool! While you will find so many different activities all over the web, I have put together some of the most incredible mini eraser activities that are tried and true and sure to love!
1. Letter Recognition
Using novelty erasers for learning new letters is a fun way to get preschoolers excited about learning the alphabet! You can often find tiny erasers that display both uppercase and lowercase letters. This is the perfect activity for preschool classes.
Learn more: Simply Kinder
2. Word Spacing
Sometimes, when kindergarten students are learning how to write, they always have some trouble with the concept of spacing between words. Give each of your students a handful of erasers and a sentence to write. As they write their words, have them place one eraser after each word.
Learn more: Sarah Bee OT
3. Fine Motor Skills Practice
Have your students do an activity that requires sorting, counting, spelling, stacking with a plastic pair of tweezers or tongs, or even with their tiny fingers. I recommend getting kid-sized tweezers or chunky tweezers to ensure your students can hold them easily.
Learn more: The Crafty OT
4. Sorting Activity
Mini-eraser sorting activities are a great way to practice grouping with math, sorting colors and shapes, or even letters. I like to have cupcake liners, the cups that students sort their mini erasers into. Using these liners is cheap, easy, efficient, and sanitary.
Learn more: Wilton
5. Let's Make Shapes!
This activity is so much for pre-K & preschool children preparing to enter kindergarten. Use your favorite mini erasers and papers with shapes printed on them, and let your kids have fun. I like to use fun spider mini erasers, ladybug mini erasers, or even other types of insect mini erasers.
Learn more: Engaging Littles
6. Mini Eraser Desk Pets!
If you have never heard of "desk pets," you are missing out. Desk pets are little animal-shaped mini erasers that students can use and play with as a form of classroom management. Kids can even build little habitats from storage containers to house their little creatures.
Learn more: Chaylor & Mads
7. Practice Math Skills
There are so many different ways to practice math skills with mini erasers. Sometimes, you can find these little treasures with addition and subtraction signs. There are a ton of great (and free) printables on the web to assist your students with learning math in a fun way. You can click on the picture above for some great material!
Learn more: My Fabulous Class
8. Make Sensory Bottles!
Sensory bottles are fun to make, play with, and even look at. These glittery bottles of joy are a great distraction for those with sensory disorders and learning disabilities. This particular activity does take a little bit of preparation time and some specific materials, but add those cute mini erasers for an even fun sensory experience.
Learn more: Chalkboard Chatterbox
9. Creat a New Board Game
Give each of your students a piece of paper and allow them to create a "game board." Then allow them to choose a few different novelty erasers as their game pieces. You will be surprised at the unique creativity of your students. They can make whatever rules they want for their new and fun game. I like the directions from Monkey and Mouse!
Learn more: Monkey and Mouse
10. Think. Pair. Share!
I use this activity ALL THE TIME. One way to use these mini erasers as a form of classroom protocol is to give an equal number of blue, green, red, yellow, and orange erasers. Then, when it is time for this activity, you can say, "blue erasers, find orange erasers..." or whatever combo you want. Whoever they find is their TPS partner.
Learn more: Tips 4 Teaching
11. Sound it Out!
Using mini erasers as a tool for practicing phonics is a great way to have fun while learning. Have students use the eraser to touch each letter in a word as they sound it out. Another option would be to have your students spell out whatever is on the eraser. For example, if your class has bee erasers, they could sound out and spell "Bee."
Learn more: Move Mountains in Kindergarten
12. Play Bingo
The website thereadingmama.com is a great resource for FREE printable Bingo boards. All you have to do is supply a handful of mini erasers to each of your students as their Bingo placeholders.
Learn more: This Reading Mama
13. Student Grouping
Similar to the method used in the Think, Pair, Share activity, these popular erasers are a creative way to group your students into learning or playgroups. This is an excellent tool for classroom management! I always liked to call them the "teams" for the types of erasers. So if I had a set of mini pumpkin erasers, they would be "team pumpkin," or if I had insect erasers, I might name them "the creepy crawlers"!
Learn more: Teach Hub
14. Use Them as Game Prizes!
It is amazing how valuable random erasers in the shapes of random animals and creatures are to small children! Using mini erasers as game prizes is an inexpensive way to reward your students.
15. Learning Stations
Have your mini erasers indicate what different learning stations in your classroom will be doing. For example, if you have ocean theme erasers, that station couple is doing an activity related to learning about sea animals. If you have butterfly mini erasers, that state can be learning about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Learn more: Herricks.org
17. Practice Heart Words
This particular activity is really simple! Simply print out the heart words you are wanting your students to practice, hand them a bunch of mini erasers, and then allow them time to fill in the gaps with the erasers. Have your students say the word out loud as they fill them in.
Learn more: Simply Kinder
18. Build Different Shapes
Similar to the above activity, simply print out the shapes you want your students to shape with their mini erasers and allow them to outline the shape with the erasers. Have your students practice saying the shape out loud as they outline it on paper.
Learn more: Teachers Pay Teachers
19. Learn Your Colors
Learn your colors with some mini eraser fun! There are so many different ways you can do this activity. You can make this into a sorting activity where students group the different colors, or, you can do the last two activities and print out the name of the color and have students use that color of eraser to outline.
Learn more: Sciencing
20. Make a Tower!
Making a tower is such a simple activity, but, it is one that builds those fine motor skills. Have students make their best tower and allow this to be a competition! Make this into a math activity where students count how many erasers they use in the process.
Learn more: Wask Studio
9 Fast and Fun Classroom Time Fillers