School Readiness at Home

School Readiness Programme: I like making marks

20 May 2020
School Readiness at Home

The end goal is for your child to learn how to write – but the journey can be so much fun! So, make sure that you and you little one has a blast learning through play to start laying the foundations for their writing skills during their early years by practising their fine motor skills.

They will do this through experimentation, making marks and exploring all their senses via a range of tools. When your child realises that their marks carry meaning, in the same way as the spoken word, they will begin to use their marks as a tool to make their thinking visible.

Depending on your child’s age, they will have different levels of concentration to dedicate to making marks. However, a great way to capture their attention is to provide them with a variety of different material to make marks with. At Kiddi Caru Day Nurseries, we have found these to be some of the children’s favourite mark making activities:

Sand
Gloop
Mud
Playdough
Clay
Paint
Colouring pencils
Water
Jelly
Chalk

Along with the above resources, make sure to supply your little one with a range of resources to explore the textures with and to make marks. The can include:

Natural resources (such as twigs, leaves and stones)
Toys (such as cars to make tyre marks)
Herbs to include the sense of smell
Paper for your child to create drawings and art work

Don’t be afraid to go outside the box, for example drawing at different levels or taking your child outside to carry out their mark making. The best source of inspiration is your child themselves. So, why not follow their lead?

Activity: Coloured Salt Mark Making

A quick and simple way to create your own mark making material at home that your child can help to create and then explore together!

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Activity: Outdoor Mark Making

Sometimes it is difficult to master the courage to provide your child with a mark making activity, especially if you’ve just cleaned the house. Why not take them outside to explore making large and small marks that will magically disappear without any tidying up required!