Magnetic Letters: Letter recognition/sort

Another simple activity to do with the magnetic letters, would be a seek 'n' sort. Give your child a cookie sheet and a small bowl of letters. Here's some tips by age/level:
Just beginning to learn letters:
*Fill the bowl about halfway. Too many letters can be overwhelming.
*Don't put too many letters that look similar (in the eyes of a child); b, d, p, and q are too close in shape and size.
*For the true beginner, I'd offer just 2 letters to differentiate.

Knows most of the alphabet:
*Offer another challenge, but not too many. Either fill the bowl with more letter, or give a few letters to sort through (like x, a, and t).
*Watch your child for signs of needing more challenge or signs of being overwhelmed. Some signals of being overwhelmed might be picking through the letters for long periods of time, giving up, disinterest even with help.

Knows alphabet, working on sounds:
*Add more letters to sort.
*Sort by a particular letter OR have them pull out letters, making the sound as they go.
*Sort the entire bowl, rather than just hunting for one letter.

More advanced:
Sort by attribute (letter only have curves, letter only has lines, letter has lines and curves, capital vs. lower case, touches top line in writing, only touches bottom and middle line when writing, etc)
*Call out a sound and have them hunt for that letter.
*Make a chunk/family (like -at) and call out a word (like fat). Have them find the beginning sound to complete the word. Could work for ending sounds, too.