pre-writing

Pipecleaner Space Hat

March 13, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 14 Comments

I have never understood the appeal of pipecleaners. They bend and make cool shapes, but for a pre-schooler I've always thought they were a little pointless and hard work.

And then I discovered (via Pinterest) a few activities which suggest that they can be used as a tool in threading and beading exercises.

I set out a tray of materials for The Boy as an invitation to explore and play.

We used:

metallic coloured pipe cleaners
buttons of various sizes
maxi Hama beads
a metal sieve
silver confetti strands

The pipecleaners are much easier to use for threading than a shoelace as they stay rigid and don't flop over while trying to fit the beads onto the end. This also makes them easier to shape when creating a design. One more bonus is that the metallic fibres covering the wire enable beads to stay in place and not slip down to the end.

We started by poking the wire end into the sieve and bending it over 'inside' to prevent it from being pulled out. Then The Boy was keen to have a mismatch of buttons and Hama beads on the pipecleaners, alternating and contrasting the design. Buttons that have multiple holes are really useful to thread two pipecleaners through. To ensure the buttons and beads didn't fall off, we tucked the loose end back into the sieve and bent the end over again.

Threading with pipecleaners

Threading is an excellent activity for pre-school children as it helps to develop fine motor skills, hand to eye co-ordination and the pincer grip; all of which are needed to develop pre-writing skills. Pipecleaners are a very useful tool for threading because of their rigidity.

And it's great fun too!

Learning Through Play: Sand Drawing

July 14, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 10 Comments

The Boy is becoming more and more curious about letters. He's desperate to know what they are called, he's practising the names and sounds that he's familiar with all the time, he's trying to form the shape of them in the air and finding letters he knows in books. I'm going to start focusing on the key letters and playing bingo games involving them because he just wants to learn!

One of the best ways to learn numbers and letters is through play. And one of the best ways to practise the formation of them is through play as well. The key point to note is that if littlies can't do it on a large scale, they can't do it on a small scale. So if they can't form the shape of letters in the air or a variety of other ways, then they won't be able to do it with a crayon on paper.

So we've been practising our pre-writing skills in a tray of coloured sand, to which I added glitter to make it more sparkly and attractive.

pre-writing

We explored the texture of the sand, making hand and foot prints.

We've been practising our shapes, squares are easy but triangles are tricky!

pre-writing

We drew faces and numbers.

learning through play

Before we moved onto drawing letters. Initially, I drew the letters in the sand while he watched me. Then he held my hand while I drew them so he could feel the flow of the shape, then I drew them and he drew over the top of my letter. next he progressed onto drawing them himself. The hardest part in all of this was that, because The Boy is left-handed, I had to reverse it and draw it with my left hand myself!

Forming letters in sand in a big tray is one of the activities that is frequently used in my school in both nursery and reception. As I've said before, until they can do it on a large scale, the smaller and more accurate writing doesn't happen. And we should be encouraging them to draw zigzag, wavy, curved and straight lines, as these are the shapes of our alphabet.

Other good materials to do this with are wood shavings or sawdust, shaving foam and that weirdy bath jelly gloop stuff. Anything that holds the shape once a finger has been drawn through it.

I bought my coloured sand from e-Bay.

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