Fun, hands-on ideas for recognizing and printing your name,
letters of the alphabet, and numbers.
- Use shaving cream and cookie sheets
- Use magnetic letters and numbers
- Use foam letters and numbers, place them into a bucket of water, and go fishing for letters and numbers
- Use chalk to write name, letters, and numbers on the sidewalk
- Use sticky notes with letters and numbers on them and place them around the house. Go for a letter and number hunt
- 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
- Use playdough to roll out the letters in their name, letters, and numbers
- Have your child create letters and numbers with their body
- Use a tray of sand or rice and have your child write their name, letters, or numbers in the sand and rice
- Use finger paints to spell out your child’s name, letters, and numbers
- When reading stories, have your child identify letters in the title, on the page, and the page numbers
- 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
- Use sandpaper letters in order for your child to feel the letters in their name (you could also use macaroni, string, etc…)
- 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