At the moment T is working on his pre-writing skills. He will be going to school in September so it’s perfect timing that he has really started to show an interest in mark making. To help encourage him, we have been working with him on the 9 pre-writing shapes:
- Vertical Line
- Horizontal Line
- Circle
- Cross
- Square
- Diagonal line – down to up
- Diagonal line – up to down
- X
- Triangle
It’s national stationary week this week and we had received an exciting bundle of stationary from Bic, with lots of products from the Bic Kids range which are perfect for all the boys and especially for Mr T to keep practising his mark making.
If you would like to introduce your child to some prewriting patterns try these printable pages too.
At the moment Mr T loves to draw pirate treasure maps, which is great as it gets him practising a lot of X for X marks the spot! Many of the other pre-writing shapes make their way into his maps too.
He was given an activity from his occupational therapist to help him develop these shapes into a drawing of a person. First we cut out all the pre-writing shapes, which were laminated on a large card.
After this T uses the shapes to make a picture of a face
and then extends it into a whole person.
Once the person is completed, he uses his pencils to copy the shapes down onto paper which helps him learn how to draw a person. All of the shapes used in this activity are pretty basic pre-writing shapes which means he is able to use these to achieve a recognisable picture more easily.
By setting the shapes out in the person formation before beginning to draw, this helps to give the child a sense and feel of the proportions and how everything fits together.
This prewriting activity is all good for general body awareness too, to reinforce where are all the different parts of the body in relation to each other.
We also practise drawing other simple pictures which can be made up from just the very basic shapes, for example:
- A simple bus just needs straight lines, square/rectangle and circles for wheels
- A cat made up of circles with small triangle ears and horizontal lines for whiskers
- A flower with circles for the petals and a straight vertical line for the stem
Each time the shapes should be modelled first and then copied, so you know that your child is starting from the correct place and following the lines in the correct direction.
The Bic Kids range is perfect for T to use to help keep these activities fun, so he is getting creative and enjoying himself while at the same time he is getting the developmental benefits from all this practise.
The range includes wax crayons, pencil crayons, felt tips and more. The colour and erase pens are a lot of fun, and introduce some more variety into our activities. Rather than ask your child to just copy the shape, you could ask him to make it appear from inside a block of colour, by getting him to use the eraser pens.
For more info on pre-writing skills and for pre-writing worksheets, check these resources:
- Pre-Writing activities for kids series at Golden Reflections Blog
- Pre-Writing worksheets from Worksheet Fun
- Great Post from Therapy Mommy with worksheets included
- 5 Pre-writing activities from I Can Teach My Child
For the older children there is also a Hello Kitty range available from Bic and the new Bic cristal stylus which is a pen at one end and a stylus for your phone or tablet at the other. If you want to make your own printable sheets for your kids this works well with Adobe ideas app. If you are more artistically talented than me I’m sure you would get better results, but you can see below some doodles I did for an Arabic alphabet colouring sheet.
How are your little ones getting on with their mark making? Do you have any fun ideas to share? Please let me know in the comments!
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
I didn’t know bic did stationary for kids
This is a great way to get children writing and I wish I had done things like this with my boy when he was smaller. I love the Bic range and thanks I will pop over to ET speaks from home
what a lovely idea, thank you for post like this as that gives me an idea what to do with my nephews or even with my own little one
What great ideas. Will have to keep them in mind for F when she gets a little older.
Ooh I hadn’t heard of the crystal stylus. Great idea! We found those pens didn’t last long unfortunately, and didn’t flow as well as some others.
That’s great, I have’nt heard of ‘pre-writing shapes’ before as a term, but it makes loads of sense 🙂
I love BIC Kids ranges, we have quite a lot of their products already even though LP can’t use half of it just yet – I’m a bit of a stationery hoarder! x
Thanks for sharing my pre-writing series in your post!
You’re welcome Heather, your site is a great resource 🙂
Really useful for me as I will be working on these with my little boy at some point. Pinning this for reference. thank you
Great ideas there, Emma is at this stage too and could do with some stimulation! I will bookmark and pin your post!
We’re stationery obsessed in this house but didn’t realise it was national Stationery week. Thanks for sharing x x
They look like lovely products. Making treasure hunts is a great idea to practice shapes
I love the BIC kids range. Some great things to try to get them working on their pre-writing skills and their pencil skills too.
He’s doing really well. I wish I had heard of these prewritting shapes before.
Baby is a bit young at the moment, but will bookmark this for when she is older x
Some good tips there I’ll need to borrow #SSAA
What a lovely hoard of stationery! It is amazing how new pens, crayons and pencils can also motivate children. I love your activity to create and then draw a person. What a lovely way to get a child motivated to hold a pen or pencil and get writing!
great tip on the 9 pre-writing shapes – thanks!
Fab post! I’m completely clueless about this sort of thing and have so much to learn. The pre-writing shapes make so much sense.
wow, Kids love the colors, really!!!
I should head to bookstore and buy the twin a similar pre writing shapes. This is such a great idea, thanks.
I didn’t know the range was do vast. Love the shapes pic. I need to concentrate on writing with Emmy soon
Just watching a report on GMTV saying we are teaching kids to read and write too young – how ridiculous. This is a great idea and looks lots of fun too
Really great post!
Bic is a brand which has followed me sice my childhood!
Nice pictures!
Didn’t know that Bic did a range for kids – really great tips!
love this! mark making is good at any age 🙂
some great tips! I agree with Laura mark making is great at any age! x
The colours and erase pens look great and I love the craft activity you have set out for him. F loves practising his writing and wrote his name the other day. I was thrilled. x
My son has started writing at his nursery, he’s so enthusiastic!
Some great ideas to help our children build a foundation for handwriting. We’ve started playing noughts and crosses with Fran and she loves making the shapes
Lovely ideas for introducing the concept of writing. My little one’s off to preschool in September so we need to do this too.
Lovely tips here – I didn’t know that bic made stationery for kids. We home educate our little one who will be “school age” in September and love activities like this. Thanks for sharing and linking up at #PoCoLo
One of my daughters is due to start school in September too. thanks for sharing these ideas, really helpful x #PoCoLo x
This is a great post – really helpful. I find that Cbeebies’ Squiggle It helps enthuse my children for drawing and writing.
My son will start school soon too and I need to help him abit with writing .. nice post =) #pocolo
Wow, this is so informative and gives me so many ideas about how best to ‘play’ drawing with my 3.5 year old son. I’m really worried about him going to school – as an August born boy, I feel he’s at a natural disadvantage, so I’m keen to make the transistion as easy as possible. Some great ideas here. Thanks. #pocolo
Those pens look fab – and what great ideas too 🙂 Thank you for linking to PoCoLo x
Some lovely ideas for pre-writing, I love the person he made from the shapes. I think we should start on this as we are due to start school in September but I’m not quite sure if our little guy is quite ready yet. Never knew there was a kids bic range!
Thanks for linking up with Small Steps Amazing Achievements :0)
x
Thank you for the tip about the competition… just in time to try my luck