r - rainbow sticks

Children in reception will be learning to:

Cut a long lengths of ribbon and tie it to the end of the stick. An adult could use the scissors to curl the ribbon.

Repeat with each of the different colours to create a rainbow ribbon.

Your child should be supervised when playing with their ribbon stick.

Use the ribbon wand to draw the pre- writing shapes in the air. Encourage your child to make large movements e.g. long horizontal or vertical lines, circles, squares, triangles and zigzags. The ability to draw these shapes will help children to be able to make the strokes needed to write letters.

Begin by modelling a shape. Your child should watch you draw the shape in the air then try to do it themselves. Then move onto showing them a picture of the shape. Are they able to make it by copying the picture instead of imitating a demonstration? You could take it in turns to draw a shape on paper for each other to copy in the air with the ribbon wand.

Then you could use the ribbon wands to write the letter r. You could make a rhyme to help e.g. down came the rain and out came the rainbow.

Arm strength – Making large movements in the air with the ribbon strengthens shoulder and arm muscles. This will provide strength and stability to allow controlled hand movements when children begin to write.

Fluency and speed – By using large arm movements to make wavy lines, zigzags and loopy patterns it will help children to develop a flow when they make marks. This will help them to develop a more fluent handwriting style enabling them to write more quickly.

Crossing the midline – Using one hand to move the ribbon from side to side gets them to cross the midline (an imaginary line down the centre of their body). This skill prevents children from needing to switch hands when they get to the middle of their page when writing from left to right.

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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