Teaching The Children To Write!

[Sue R]

'Course we will - they've borne with me for long enough !!!

 

Sue

[Guest]

Just wanted to share this with all of you. this little boy never sits down at anything but soent over 10 minutes using the pegs and pegging them on the plate.

[Guest]

help steve

why has it attached such a large image?

[JacquieL]

I tried out this peg idea after reading about it on here. The children loved it. We used a sandtimer to see how many we could put on in a minute. I have found pegs holding work together and even on the number cards with the correct number on each card. No idea who did that, which is a shame as it would have made a great observtion.

[Steve]

Hi Leo -

That would be the original size of the image you sent. If you don't have any graphics programs to reduce the size and resolution of the image it will post it quite large.

 

I've got a nice big monitor so it looks really good on mine!

[Guest]

That is a wonderful photograph Leo. It's amazing what the children can get out of such a simple activity. I think we will be trying that next week!

Linda

[Guest]

Hi there I only joined last week and have seen loads of great ideas already it's fantastic! just wanted to share an idea we used last year in reception, we found some largish plastic tweezers in the junior science cupboard and supplied lots of sequins, beads and shiny paper for the children to sort, they loved it

[Susan]

hi Clementine and welcome.

Another lovely idea! I bet the children enjoyed that!!

 

I love the peg idea too!

 

I have used paper tearing as a fine manipulative control activity, stickings the bits to make collages. Another activity that the children have enjoyed is following an outline with string or wool.

[Beau]

Hi Clementine,

 

Welcome and thanks for that. It's a great idea.

[Guest]

super idea clementine.

[Sue R]

Welcome clementine!!

 

Sue

[Magenta]

We put all sorts of pasta, beans, lentils etc. into the builder's tray then provide tweezers, tongs, chopsticks, slotted spoons etc along with different sized containers. Great for matching, sorting, counting, size etc. too. A flat ferrero rocher box provides an excellent sorting tray. Hopefully added a photo, not sure whether its very clear.

[Beau]

I would say that it's pretty clear Magenta!!

[Guest]

A quick and cheap one to develop strength in hands - provide lots of newspapers - children can tear sheets up or screw up and use to aim at a target/into a bucket.

The harder they screw the paper and the tighter they can get the 'ball' the more accurate they can make it (does that make sense

 

Harricroft.

[Susan]

That sounds like fun!

another activity I have had are trays of sand for children to make finger patterns in or letter shapes. This is always enjoyed by all and the least confident or developed pencil users often use the sand in a very theraputic way running it through their fingers and caressing it with both hands etc. It can be an independent activity but tends to be less messy and more focused with an adult!!

I bought cheap plastic tea trays from IKEA which had a textured surface abd were ideal. A set of 6 is quite affordable! Although the sand trays in the catalogues look lovely they are very expensive in comparison.

[Sue R]

My children like to use salt trays, but they can be a bit dodgy with eczema,abrasions, eyes etc so they need to be carefully monitored.

 

Sue

[hali]

Excellent ideas, we use rice and barley with sequins in and tweezers to pull them out....kiddies love it as do Ofsted!!!! :wacko:

[Guest]

I love the peg idea and have tried it out today!! We had 3 diferent sized paper plates and the children loved the activity. In the afternoon we used a one minute sand timer to time how many pegs the children could get on to a plate!!! It was a very popular activity and kept the children focused and very quiet!! Each child had a score sheet and we recorded their score for each game. They loved it and at the end I told each child their highest score. They were thrilled and asked if we can play it again tomorrow!!

Thank you for such a fantastic idea.

Jo

[Rea]

We use a dice with colours on and coloured pegs, they take turns with the dice and then pick the peg.

[Sue R]

Some lovely ideas here!! Well done!!

 

Sue

[hali]

We did the pegs too today...fab.....they loved it...got some great obs.....

[apple]

we've found using ground rice or semolina better than sand in our little trays as the ground rice seems to hold the pattern or letter shape much better

what about using chopsticks? one in each hand to pick up the objects... bit more challenging Our local chinese resturant has child chopsticks which are different in design and much easier to use. We cheekily aske for half a dozen and they gladly obliged

[hali]

Blamounche powdre (excuse spelling) just like cornflour but smells yummy....

[Jackie A.]

I remember being on a course run by Sally Featherstone and she gave lots of ideas for practising pincer grip. One that stuck in my mind was to use the small rubber soap mats - the sort with tiny rubber suction pads underneath. These were put on the edge of the water tray. The water had colour added and the children used pipettes to pick up water and squeeze a drop onto each suction bit. The drops look like little jewels and the children are completely fascinated and keen to fill their soap mat.

[catma]

Using salad tongs or ice tongs in the sand worked well for us last year, children picked up conkers and similar sized objects. lots of counting too.

 

I wish I had a class to do pegs in.......feeling left out

 

HMI said to me once that activities that develop tracking left to right in preparation for writing and reading tracking left to right are also veryimportant, pegs on peg boards for example. Can't think of others right now. Bet you all can!!

[Rea]

Ooo I've probably got an old cribbage board somewhere

[Guest]

Did the pegs on plates today as an indepedent maths activity. I explained it first and children used a tocker to time it. Think they cheated as the tocker was a thirty second tocker and they 'somehow' managed to get loads of pegs on in that time .... Yeah!!! Still it kept them happy and 'relatively' quiet, and at least I can justify that they were developing fine motor control even if they didn't follow the idea behind it. Super activity ... If you haven't tried it yet, give it a go. It's SOOOOOO simple.

 

Harricroft

[Susan]

I think we've just proved the cross curricular nature of our activities. In a topic started about writing we have now got independent maths activities.!!

When I get a class again, I shall remember this one!