Home > Literacy Activities > Preschool writing activity – Salt tray

Preschool writing activity – Salt tray

Developing preschool writing skills – salt tray

Preschool writing development activityAt some point in preschool years children start to develop an interest in letter formation and writing moving on from scribbles and circles to noticing letter forms and wanting to copy. J is at this stage and very interested in letters at the moment so I set up this preschool writing activity for him using a Salt Tray. Having seen The Imagination Tree’s Sensory Salt Tray around this time last year  I set up something similar for him using table salt (uncoloured).

What you need for this preschool writing activity

A plain tray
Table Salt
Plain Paper
Marker Pen
Mark Making Equipment (pencil or pen)

Setting up and working on preschool writing

Looking at letter formation there are some standard shapes that are used in forming most of the letters, lines, circles, waves and zig zags so I focused on producing some cards that showed these for J to replicate in the salt on the tray. Folding a piece of paper in half I drew a set of lines, shapes on one half of the paper and made sure that it would stand up on the table and set up the tray with the salt on it front and introduced the activity to J.

preschool mark making with fingers for letter formationInitially using our fingers I showed J what we were going to do and then J started – his first instinct was to remove his hand at the end of each part of the sequence of shapes as in the image above but we worked on forming a continuous line as if he were to form a chain of u’s or w’s.

mark making with pencils developing preschool writing skillsUsing a pencil with grips on J worked on his favourite shape a circle – we are working on pencil hold at the moment and you can see he has the grip now we need to work it lower we’ve been using the tips from this video from I can Teach my child.

Preschool writing activity making zigzagsOne of the things I love about preschool and early years of school aged children’s hand writing is the difference in the scale of letters they form – J loves drawing circles and his circle was miles bigger than the other forms he drew in the salt tray – the zigzag he found quite hard and drew very small in the tray.

developing preschool writing skillsWhen we finished the activity I poured the salt into a ziplock bag and put into a craft/writing equipment for another day.

 

 

 

 

 

Author
Cerys Parker

Cerys is a marine biologist, environmental educator, teacher, mum, and home educator from the UK. She loves getting creative, whether it is with simple and easy crafts and ideas, activities to make learning fun, or delicious recipes that you and your kids can cook together you'll find them all shared here on Rainy Day Mum.

5 Comments

  1. One cannot expect magical results immediately after the
    first session. The spacing of procedures is recommended to give the
    follicles that were in their “resting” state or not
    actively growing during your preceding procedure to get in their active phase and grow hair.
    When you are getting the procedure done it seemed closer to many bee stings at the same time or severe static electric
    shock. If you missed my earlier article about my $425 in winnings from the Laser’.
    Clark places a focus on prevention of disease and aging,
    providing an array of treatments, including Upper East Side New York laser hair
    removal, Botox and dermal fillers, among other treatments.

    My blog; Accident Attorney in Colorado Springs

  2. You can use couscous instead of salt. Holds the mark making well, without the worry of salt in mouth!

  3. Our son has trouble holding a pen/pencil properly so maybe a salt tray and teaching him with his fingers would be a great first step. Thank you for the inspiration.
    Best of luck with the MADs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.