Download a month of hands-on literacy activities, book-inspired builds, and playful learning ideas.
September is National Literacy Month, a time to celebrate reading and the many ways children grow through language, stories, letters, and words.
A love of literacy often begins with simple moments: sharing a favorite book, singing a song, noticing the letters in a child's name, discovering a new word, asking questions about a story, or making one up together. Long before children read independently, these everyday experiences help strengthen the listening, speaking, imagination, and early literacy skills that set the stage for reading and writing.
That’s why literacy doesn’t have to stop when the book closes.
With MAGNA-TILES, children can bring literacy off the page and into hands-on play. Using MAGNA-TILES LEARN Letters and favorite MAGNA-TILES building sets, they can build letters, explore sounds, make words, recreate story settings, invent characters, and tell stories of their own.
Meet LEARN Letters
Designed to make letter learning more hands-on, MAGNA-TILES LEARN Letters give children a playful way to explore early literacy skills through building, matching, and word play. Because literacy is about more than recognizing letters. It’s also about:
- listening and speaking
- making connections between sounds and symbols
- building vocabulary
- expressing ideas
- understanding stories
- using imagination to create meaning
Play creates natural opportunities for all of this.
A Month of Literacy Play
To celebrate National Literacy Month, we created A Month of Literacy Play with MAGNA-TILES Building Sets calendar filled with simple, hands-on literacy activities for home, the classroom, or small-group learning.
Each week builds around a different literacy theme:
· Week 1: Play with Letters
· Week 2: Play with Sounds
· Week 3: Build with Words
· Week 4: Build the Story
· Week 5: Celebrate Literacy
Along the way, you’ll find activities inspired by MAGNA-TILES Learning Hub resources, daily literacy play prompts, and a special Read and Build activity each Friday.
Friday Read and Build
Each Friday, the calendar pairs a children’s book with a hands-on MAGNA-TILES build, inviting children to bring what they read off the page and into play. They might recreate a setting, build a favorite character, respond to a story, or imagine what happens next.
These playful prompts also help build important reading comprehension skills by encouraging children to think beyond the words on the page. As they recall story details, describe characters and settings, make connections, retell events, and imagine what could happen next, they’re practicing how to understand and make meaning from what they read.
Featured books in the calendar are included as inspiration for story-based play and can be found at local bookstores, libraries, and favorite retailers.
In Canada, families can also explore featured reads through Indigo Kids, where stories, Storytime, and MAGNA-TILES play comes together. If you’re near an Indigo Kids location, join us on September 19 for a special Storytime and MAGNA-TILES play event.
Designed to Support Meaningful Literacy Moments
The goal of this resource is not to check off every day perfectly. It is to offer ways to weave literacy into play throughout the month. You will also see select activities that connect to additional printable play guides from the MAGNA-TILES Learning Hub.
Download the A Month of Literacy Play with MAGNA-TILES Building Sets calendar for a month of hands-on literacy activities that combine reading, building, talking, and imagination.
Whether you try a few favorite prompts or use the full month as your guide, we hope this calendar helps children experience literacy in a fun new way!
Share
Get Started with 3 Fun MAGNA-TILES Building Ideas
MAGNA-TALES Activites