Pre-writers Club: Cardboard Box Wall

Physical Development - Moving and Handling (30-50 months):

Draws lines and circles using gross motor movements.

(40-60+ months):

Beginning to retrace vertical lines.

What you need:

I turned a box inside out then we used wax crayons to draw brick shapes on the box to create a wall. I used crayon rocks which are designed to supports the development of the muscles required for a good pencil grip but you broken wax crayons will do the same job.

I started to draw brick shapes and Benji joined in. The square is the fifth shape in the pre-writing shapes and he found it quite tricky to draw. Children tend to master this shape around 4 years old. He is able to draw horizontal lines and vertical lines well so I drew four dots and helped him to join them together to create a brick shape. I also draw some brick shapes which he drew around. This helped him to see when to stop and change direction.

Once he had finished drawing the wall, we lined up some plastic eggs along the edge. He threw a ball to see how many he could knock down. If he didn't throw it far enough it bounced on the box then bounced right over them which he thought was hilarious. He also tried rolling the ball along the box to see how many eggs he could knock off.

We also tried shooting balls using his dinosaur shooter which is great for building hand strength. After he finished playing, he turned the box into a ramp for his cars.

Gross Motor Skills – Throwing the ball strengthens shoulder muscles. This will provide strength and stability to allow controlled hand movements when children begin to write.

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Visual Skills – Aiming to knock the eggs off the wall helps to strengthen their visual perception skills and hand-eye co-ordination which helps when writing words across a page and when forming letters.

Use broken crayons to draw with so that your child grips them using their thumb, index finger and middle finger rather than using a whole hand grasp. This will help to develop the tripod grip.

If you have a go at this activity and share any photos on social media I would love to see them. Please tag @miniwritersclub and let me know how you get on.

Anna

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