Homemade alphabet letters!

Last weekend Brian and I mixed up some salt dough and made homemade alphabet letters for Little Pink Girl. It was a lot of fun! We made them textured so that she would enjoy feeling them. Brian made the best textures ... notice the S, L, J, M, Q, O, I and L?

We just used the salt dough recipe from the Family Home Evening Resource Manual. It is really simple and cheap: salt, flour and water. It was a lot of fun to play with the clay. Brian said it reminded him of his pottery class in college. We even baked it in the oven (that's close to firing it, right?). And it is one way to help Little Pink Girl learn her letters and eventually read!

Anyone else have other strategies they use at a young age to help their kids be literate?