10 Fun Pre-Writing Activities for Preschoolers
When it comes to pre-writing activities for preschoolers, there are a lot of different things you can do to help prepare your kids for writing letters and numbers. Let’s take a look at 10 of the best pre-writing activities that are both fun and educational. These activities will help your child develop the skills necessary to grip a pencil correctly, control a pencil, and begin to form letters correctly.
What are Pre-writing Skills?
Pre-writing skills are the basic skills your child needs to develop to be able to write. These skills include:
- Holding a pencil correctly or pencil grasp
- Controlling a pencil
- Forming letters correctly
Why are Pre-writing Skills Important?
Pre-writing skills are important because they help your child be able to write letters and numbers correctly.
How can I help my child develop Pre-writing Skills?
You can do several pre writing tasks with your child to help them develop the skills necessary and prepare to write. Here are some fun pre-writing activities for preschoolers that don’t involve writing:
- Drawing lines and simple shapes
- Tracing lines and shapes
- Dot to dot activities
- Coloring pages
- Play Dough Activities
- Building with Blocks
What are Pre-writing strokes?
As kids get more hand strength, have a better pencil grasp and more control over their pencil or crayon, they begin to have the ability to make different strokes with their writing instrument. Practicing pre-writing strokes will help them develop even more control needed to write letters.
A pre-writing line or stroke is a basic stroke your child needs to know for letter formation. Think about all the strokes you use when printing the letters of the alphabet. These strokes include:
- Horizontal straight lines
- Vertical straight lines
- Diagonal Lines
- Curved lines
- Zigzag lines.
Ways to Practice Pre-writing Strokes
There are a bunch of ways that you can help your child practice pre-writing strokes. Here are some fun pre-writing activities for preschoolers that you can do at home or in the classroom:
Use a Salt Tray
Your kids can practice pre-writing without even holding a pencil. A salt tray or sand tray is a fun sensory experience and a great way to introduce making lines. Fill a tray with salt or other fun materials and have your child make pre-writing strokes in the salt with their finger, a paintbrush, or a magic wand.
Finger-tracing
While I love a good salt tray, you don’t need to have salt to practice pre-writing. Kids can just use their index fingers to trace the lines on a letter or shape. Do you notice how these letter cards have a circle to indicate the starting point? This is one of the most effective ways to help kids with proper letter formation.
Want to learn more easy ways to use the simple letter cards? Check out this article about letter formation ideas.
Write in Shaving Cream
Write letters or shapes in shaving cream on a mirror, window, or on a flat surface like a tabletop. This is a great way to make pre-writing strokes more fun and tactile.
Shaving Cream Connect the Dots
This is a cute connect the dots idea from School Time Snippets. Before writing in shaving cream, start out by putting a dot of shaving cream on the surface, then have kids connect the dot. I know your kids will have so much fun with this line practice activity.
Writing on a Friend’s Back
Beware! This one might invoke lots of giggles. Young students can make lines on their friends’ backs. They can also make lines on their own palm or thigh.
Pre-writing worksheets
There are a ton of pre-writing worksheets available online and in classrooms. These are great resources to help your child practice pre-writing strokes. Some pre-writing worksheets, like this ocean-themed pre-writing activity, have just strokes. Others, like these Easter egg pre-writing practice printables, have tracing lines within images.
Simple Mazes
I think that easy mazes for preschoolers are a great way to help young children practice pre-writing strokes. Start with simple mazes and then move on to more complex ones.
Match and Connect Images
You can make your own match and connect activity with stickers or use a printable activity page. Add stickers to a piece of paper, and make sure that you have two of every sticker. This great prewriting activity is similar to a maze, but it puts their cognitive skills to work as kids are challenged to find the matching images and then connect them with a line. Challenge them to NOT touch any other images on the page.
Mark Making in Playdough
This is a great idea from Fantastic Fun and Learning. Roll playdough out and use a chopstick or pencil to make lines on the surface.
Fine Motor Crafts
Fine motor crafts can have many benefits for preschoolers. My printable fine motor crafts, provide were specifically designed to give kids opportunities to build fine motor skills. Each of the projects includes a variety of dotted lines that kids can trace. The crafts are a great option to sneak in some pre-writing practice.
You can also find additional fine motor crafts like beaded stars, necklaces, and more to help with pre-writing skills.
Tactile Cards
I love these touch & feel prewriting cards from Teach Me Mommy. You can also use my ideas from my tactile letter cards to create DIY cards with with anything from pipe cleaners to glitter glue….and I think they are more exciting than Montessori sandpaper letters. There are endless possibilities!
I hope that these tips and fun activity ideas will help you as you work on activities to help your preschoolers prepare to be great writiers.
Pre-Writing Activities for Preschoolers in the Store
Are you ready to get to work on some pre-writing activities for preschoolers? Check out the following pre-writing activities in the Early Learning Ideas store today. The printable activities are perfect for preschool and kindergarten teachers, occupational therapists, or parents.
Purchase the Pre-writing Printables on TPT
Do you prefer to purchase resources on TPT? You can also buy the pre-writing resources in my Teacher Pay Teacher Store.
