Pre-Writers Club: Tyre Tracks

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

Draws lines and circles using gross motor movements.

Expressive Arts and Design - Exploring & Using Media & Materials (40-60 months): Understands that different media can be combined to create new effects.

Explores what happens when they mix colours.

What you need:

Tape two pieces of paper together, along the short edge, to make a long piece of paper. Squeeze some paint in the middle of the paper and drive the vehicles through the paint to make tyre tracks.

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 long piece of paper allows your child to push the vehicle across the page, crossing their midline.

You could line up different vehicles and push them through a line of paint. Encourage your child to look carefully at the tyre tracks. Do they look the same or different?

Visual Discrimination - This is the ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, colour, shape, etc. Looking carefully at the patterns left by the tyres will help to develop this skill. This will help children learn to spot the differences between letters e.g. b, d, p.

You could also try using different colours and explore what happens when they mix.

Pre-writing Shapes - In order to form letters correctly children should be able to draw thes pre-writing shapes. This activity is a great way to practice the horizontal line. You could drive the vehicles to make some of the other shapes too.

To support writing, model driving the vehicles from left to right because this is how letters are typically formed and the direction that we write in.

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