Writing

The following suggestions and activities are adapted from the Ministry of Education Website

• Make writing fun!

• Use a range of tools to write with - pens, pencils, crayons, felts, chalk or use their finger to write in shaving foam, rice or sand;

• You don't have to write on paper - your child could write on the concrete with chalk or water;

• Help your child write an alphabet letter, then go letter hunting in your house or in a book to find that letter;

• Get your child to practice writing their name, talk about the letters in your child’s name and where their name comes from;

• If your child can't write their name yet, you could write their name with a highlighter and get them to go over top of it; or use your hand over top of their hand (hand-over-hand) to write their name;

• Another pre-writing activity is to draw zig-zag lines, wavy lines, straight lines etc in highlighter and your child can go over top of that too;

• Let your child see you writing;

• Encourage them to write a letter, birthday cards, email or text family, whānau or friends;

• Work with them to put labels on special things – like the door to their room or their toy box;

• Water and a paintbrush on a dry path and a stick on sand are fun ways to write letters and words;

• Help them create a scrapbook with pictures. Encourage them to write stories under the pictures and talk to you about them;

• Ask them to write about pictures they draw - on paper or on the computer. Or get them to tell you the story and you write it under the picture;

• Do an activity with your child and get them to write about it or add a photo. Children find it easier to write about things they have done;

• Use magnetic letters/foam letters to make words and have fun.