Writing Activities
I use this activity to help my kindergartener son practice his spelling words. Because let’s face it, memorizing things isn’t fun for young children. Since my 3 year old daughter thinks she should do everything her big brother does, I adjusted this for her to practice her letters, numbers, and writing practice.
All you will need to do this simple activity are paper and crayons. That’s it.
I drew an upper and lower case A for my daughter and her friend. But we also did a couple of numbers and threw in some shapes, too.
Have your child trace the letter, shape, or number with any color crayon. As they are tracing it have them say it out loud, too. For letters we say the letters and then say the sound they make. For shapes we will say the shape and then say something that is that shape. You get the idea.
Have them trace over the object again with a different color crayon.
Then have them repeat it again with another color, and so on until all seven colors of the rainbow are used.
Our friends had a little trouble getting the idea at first, they wanted to draw another one next to the one I had drawn. But with a little bit of guidance they saw that it would make that one a rainbow and then they were eager to do it.
Now you have a rainbowed letter (or number or shape).
This is a very easy way to get your child to do repetition without making it seem like doing the same thing seven times. It is great for handwriting and pencil grasp practice, along with recognition of letters, shapes, numbers, and colors. It really is a lot of fun and your refrigerator will soon be covered with rainbowed objects. Just a warning.
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
For about 3 weeks we’ve been writing on our playroom wall, well on paper attached to the wall. Both my kids, friends who have come by and even my husband and I have contributed to this on going mural. My daughter loves to write on vertical surfaces and she is just starting to point out letters in books and other print so I figures we could fill both those needs and create a cooperative project for my son and her as well.
- Gather your materials. You will need some painters tape ( don’t buy the cheap stuff, I did and it’s cheap for a reason), butcher block ( aka craft paper), marker and then the materials to decorate things like crayons, markers, stickers…
- Clear a large wall space, part of the magic of a mural is it’s size so to make a simple project like this super make it big. Hang the paper up.
- Write out the alphabet . I thought I had it spaced well but poor little z got almost no space.
- Add kids. Sometimes I ask her to find a letter and color, often I just put the crayon jar on the floor and watch.
- We added stickers . My son put them on the matching letter, and directed my daughter where to put them too. Stickers are great little fine motor exercises especially peeling them off their original sheets.
- Now every time we are in the playroom ( many times a day) someone adds something.
Not sure how long we will leave it up but for now we are having fun with it. Below is the mural today- check out all the stars on the letter S, it’s my daughter’s favorite word these days!
Alphabet Books
by Denise Fleming is a wonderful example of what an alphabet book should be. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning their first letters, the text is short , the letters are front and center and the illustrations are fun and interesting. My son loves this book, I grabbed it at the library after remembering how much my Pre K class loved it too.Many alphabet books are too long to read entirety at circle time or in one shot with a toddler but this my 19 month old will sit through Z every time. {This review is from when my son was 19 months old in 2008. His love of this book was really a jumping off point for his love of letters in general. I wish I could say I taught him his letters but really reading this one particular book over and over at his request probably did the trick. }
Chicka Chicka ABC
Al Pha’s Bet
This was taught to me by a developmental therapist and I used this technique with one of my foster sons that had sensory issues. I never thought to do it for help with recognition for shapes, letters, and numbers. Duh! But I finally made the connection last month when I had the daunting task of coming up with activities for my children during a 6 hour car ride. You will see what I am talking about in a second.
The only things you will need for this activity are sandpaper, crayons (I used oil pastels since they are softer), and yarn. Yep, that’s it.
Draw any shape, letter, number, pretty much anything onto a piece of sandpaper.
This is especially helpful for me because our school system uses D’nealian handwriting techniques and you cannot find that as easily as traditional font activities.
Now give your child a piece of yarn (about 12 inches) and let them “trace” the shape or letter with the yarn.
*Please be careful, long strands of yarn can be dangerous for small children. This activity can easily use two pieces of yarn for a shape if needed. Only you know what your child is ready for.
Even though my son is past letter recognition, he had to join in because my daughter was having too much fun.
A neat benefit to this activity is that the sandpaper grips the yarn. So the yarn will stay in place as your child manipulates it along the paper. This is what makes it so awesome for travel, too. The yarn will stay where you put it. Now if your child waves the paper wildly declaring, “I did it!” the yarn will move a bit. As you can see. 
Are you going to use shapes, letters, numbers, or do you have another idea? Please share.
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Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It
This activity was inspired by my halloween candy counting over at my other blog . Seeing how resistant my son is to writing tells me one thing, that he needs to practice lots but it needs to be within activities he loves. This is a math activity with gross motor, and some writing on a vertical surface which is great for begining writers because it forces the correct wrist position and strengthens the correct muscles in the hand and arm.
- Gather your materials. You will need some paper ( I get this craft paper in the mailing supply section of Walmart , way cheaper than real butcher paper), markers and something to put the paper on the wall with. I use painter’s tape and I use a lot so my toddler doesn’t pick it off.
- Draw a house .
- Decide what things you want to count and write them on. I made the windows and doors spots to write the numbers in.
- Invite your counter to read the questions on the poster.
- Go count !
- Come back and fill in the answers.
- I wish I had a magic wand for my son to make him beleive in his ability to write, to know that he doesn’t have to be perfect and to understand that just because reading is easy doesn’t mean that writing should be or that there is anything wrong because it’s hard. So instead we are doing lots of fun writing… and hoping we turn the corner gently on his terms if possible.
He likes to “split the work” so I made sure we were counting some things with 2 digits, I’d do one or make dots for him and he’d do the other. I don’t think it’s worth it to push to frustration , instead finding ways to make him willing is more my style. 
- Search your house poster to see which question has the biggest number and which is the smallest.
Counting Books
On the Launch Pad: A Counting Book About Rockets
1, 2, Buckle My Shoe
How Much, How Many, How Far, How Heavy, How Long, How Tall Is 1000?
This week I dove into Pinterest full on. I love the ideas that are out there and for creative bloggers it’s this fine balance between getting inspired and feeling like everyone else has all the best ideas. After brushing myself off, telling myself not to act like my children I dove back in and fell in love. All of this is to explain that I got this idea from a pin – after seeing these great labyrinths from bloesem kids I thought how can I make it so it encourages writing but is low on the frustration meter. This is what we did.
- Gather your materials. You will need a CD case, some plain paper, markers, scissors and dry erase markers.
- Start by taking the liner out of the cd case and tracing it to make your own liners – we made 4 by folding and layering the paper before cutting.
- Next make the mazes. Ok so you could totally print some off the internet too and I encourage you to do this because man making mazes isn’t super easy, but maybe I am just maze challenged.
- Pop them all in a stack and into your case facing the back . Now your child can do a few at a time or all in one sitting.
- Add your kid and dry erase – mistakes are no biggie and look , writing practice!
If you make a mistake , just wipe and try again! 
You really should check out bloesem kids they have some magnificent ideas.
