What makes Mondays better? Move to Learn Mondays, of course! Today we are focusing on a key strategy to support children’s awareness of letters and their ability to learn to print. They key strategy – follow their interests!
As we know, every child is unique. Some children from a very young age, demonstrate a love of fine motor activities and readily engage in colouring and drawing activities during their play. Other children are far happier playing outside, readily engage in constructive play, can create intricate roads and pathways for their cars and trucks, and/or seek a variety of rough and tumble play opportunities
As children’s motor skills develop through the provision of opportunity and practice, we should expect tremendous differences in their motor skills – especially their fine and visual motor skills – when they arrive in kindergarten.
To assist young children, it is critical that we follow their interests and invite opportunities for fostering their learning and development through play. For example, if your child is more interested in cars and trucks than picking up a pencil, explore using their love of cars to drive on road letters (see below, cards available at https://www.thealphabet.xyz). Another strategy is to begin to invite colouring and drawing by having them draw signs for their roads in their play centres. Either way, when you invite practice through play, you are sure to see skills develop in no time.
I would love to hear of diverse ways you have engaged children in learning to colour, print, and draw. At the clinic, we have a lot of fun exploring children’s interests. When using the cards pictured below with our small eraser cars and trucks, we have even had police (children) issuing handwritten tickets when adults drive their cars off the road 🙂