Updated: Nov 23, 2021
Physical Development - Moving and Handling (30-50 months):
Draws lines and circles using gross motor movements.
(40-60+ months):
Begins to use anticlockwise movement and retrace vertical lines
What you need:
large cardboard box/roll of paper
wax crayons/felts/crayons
toy vehicles
Flatten the box and lie it on floor. Draw roads and islands on the cardboard to create a road. Once I started to draw on the cardboard box, they wanted to join in. Sophie drew some more roads and Benji followed the roads using his pen.
We used some empty cardboard boxes to design buildings. Benji wanted to make his nursery.
Pencil Grasp – The photos above show 3 different pencil grips. In the first picture Benji is holding the felt tip with his whole hand and his palm is facing sideways. The movement comes from his shoulder. I tried handing him his pen so that it pointed in the opposite direction so that his palm faced down. This is the next stage of pencil grip development and the movement is beginning to come from his arm and elbow. In the third photo, you can see that Sophie has developed a tripod grip where the movement comes from her wrist, hand and fingers which helps her to make smaller, more controlled marks.
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.
Crossing the midline - The midline is an imaginary line that divides the body into the left side and the right side. Being able to cross the midline will enable children to be able to write across the page without having to swap hands. Using a large piece of paper allows your child to make marks across the page, crossing their midline.
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