What to do with this activity?
Learning to write by hand takes every child a long time and lots of practice. A large part of it has to do with gaining control over the arm, hand and finger movements that are necessary to form numbers and letters. Tracing can help your child practise the skills necessary for writing.
Trace around things you have in the house like saucers, coins, toy bricks, biscuit cutters and so on. Trace around one of their own hands, or someone else's hand - compare the size of child and adult hands. You can buy stencils in stationery and toy shops with shapes your child can trace.
For extra fun, spread newspapers all over the floor, get someone to lie down and let your child trace around their body.
If your five year old enjoys it, they might like to trace patterns like these ones from Kidzone that you can print. If you don't have a printer, draw out a rough version they can use.
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Why am I doing this?
Learning to write should be fun. It’s important that children know that writing is a fun and useful. By fitting it into everyday activities, like drawing, writing notes and birthday cards children will get used to holding a pencil and learning to write properly.
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How can I do more?
Encourage your child to write and draw - on outdoor walls with chalk or in the sand at the beach. Give them picture mazes or puzzles to fill out – join the dot puzzles are great for their hand eye coordination.
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