Hands-On Learning

Fun, hands-on ideas for recognizing and printing your name, letters of the alphabet, and numbers.

1. Use shaving cream and cookie sheets
2. Use magnetic letters and numbers
3. Use foam letters and numbers, place them into a bucket of water, and go fishing for letters and numbers
4. Use chalk to write name, letters, and numbers on the sidewalk
5. Use sticky notes with letters and numbers on them and place them around the house. Go for a letter and number hunt
6. Cut letters and numbers out of magazines and flyers and have your child identify and print the letters they cut or even arrange letters to create their name
7. Use playdough to roll out the letters in their name, letters, and numbers
8. Have your child create letters and numbers with their body
9. Use a tray of sand or rice and have your child write their name, letters, or numbers in the sand and rice
10. Use finger paints to spell out your child’s name, letters, and numbers
11. When reading stories, have your child identify letters in the title, on the page, and the page numbers
12. Rainbow writing: write out your child’s name, and have them trace over it with different colours of markers until they use all the colours of the rainbow and more
13. Use sandpaper letters in order for your child to feel the letters in their name (you could also use macaroni, string, etc…)
14. Painting name, letters, and numbers with paintbrushes and water or with actual paint

Here is a LIST so far of fun, hands-on activities. Try them at home and have fun!

Fine Motor Control

Ø     Make playdough and practise creating different things and doing different things using the playdough (e.g, cutting, rolling, squeezing, stamping)

Ø     Use jigsaw puzzles which help your child to manipulate objects and it challenges them to problem solve

Ø     Use small Lego to build different things

Ø     Use eye droppers to pick up water

Ø     Use tongs to count a variety of different objects around the house

Ø     Practise cutting a variety of different things using scissors (e.g., paper, flyers, magazines, newspapers)

Ø     Pinching activities using clothespins and clips

Ø     Stringing activities using string and beads or raw macaroni/cereal on pipe cleaners

Ø     Picking up and laying down of small materials (e.g., pennies)

Ø     A variety of different nuts and bolts and have your child put them together

Ø     Lacing shapes (e.g., cut out a shape and hole punch the edges and have your child practise lacing the shape)

Ø     Squeezing pipettes (e.g., have your child help you squeeze the icing onto a cake)

Ø     Writing/Drawing pictures using different writing tools (e.g., pencils, markers, crayons)

Ø     Tearing up paper into straight lines

Ø     Painting with different sizes of paintbrushes and cut and paste activities

Ø     Get your child to help wipe the table and have them wring the water out of the cloth or sponge