Prewriting skills – draw and erase

Prewriting skills is an important stage in child development, it’s those squiggles, lines and circles that eventually will form individual letters, numbers and words. Mark Making in which ever medium is a good activity and is is mark making on the vertical which works those muscles that are needed for the control of pens and pencils in the future as well.

Equipment needed

Chalk Board on an Easel
Chalks
Paint Brush
Water
Cloth for drying
Chalk Board Eraser

Check out these other fun ways to learn the alphabet with our Fun and Simple Alphabet Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Prewriting skills – draw and erase

Set up a chalk board easel with a selection of chalks, chalk board erase, a pot with a small amount of water in and paint brush.

On the chalk board you will need to draw some of the components of letters – so you are looking at lines for the up down movements, circles, waves, v’s, u’s, m’s only focus on one component of a letter at a time.

Draw one of the components in a light coloured chalk and then demonstrate erasing the letter with the water using the pain t brush.

Help your child if they are young to follow the lines on the board that you have drawn and expect lots of water drawing outside of the marks – that really doesn’t matter as they are still mark making – the older the child the more likely they are to just follow you lines and then randomly mark make the younger expect them to do more random than actual erasing of your lines.

Once they have covered the board you can dry off with a cloth (an old tea towel works really well) and then prime the board using a chalk on it’s side (our chalks have a black that I use exclusively to prime the board with) and then erase.

Once primed you can repeat with a new letter component. We worked on Lines, Circles and V’s this time and in the future will move on and start to form individual letters as T starts to recognise more and more of them and has the components of the letters down.

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.