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10 Pre-Writing Activities for Preschoolers

by Angela Thayer 17 Comments

My oldest, who is almost 5, recently started attending a wonderful preschool. At school, he is asked to trace his name as well as other letters they are working on. When I watch him write, he gets upset because he can’t follow the lines perfectly. (I think he got this perfectionist trait from me…sorry!)

I also notice that it is hard for him to control the writing utensil. Because I saw this lack of confidence in his writing skills and I decided to help him change this. I realized the best place to start is with building up hand strength and to practice fine motor skills. Kids need to build up their hand strength through fine motor skills before actually writing. Here are 10 pre-writing activities we’ve been doing at home to build strength in my preschooler’s hands.

10 pre-writing activities for preschoolers

Play Dough

Just playing with play dough is great for building strength in hands. Practice making balls, rolling play dough into snakes, or create fun designs. Here is my favorite homemade recipe!

image of play dough

Q-tip painting

Practice the pincer grip by painting with a q-tip. Kids love this activity and you get to make beautiful art! I have tons of free q-tip painting printables, too! Check them out here.

q-tip painting for fine motor skills

Lacing

You can buy lacing cards or create your own from foam sheets or card stock, like we did in lacing hearts or lacing crowns. It’s really great practice for fine motor skills! lacing practice for fine motor skills

Beads & Pipe Cleaners

Use the pincer grip to slide beads onto pipe cleaners.

threading beads on a pipe cleaner

Cutting Practice

Using scissors is a great way to build hand strength. If paper is too hard to cut, try cutting play dough or straws.

cutting straw for pre-writing skills

Write in Corn Meal

This is so much fun! Just pour corn meal, sugar, or flour onto a tray. Then let your child write with their finger to make letters or designs. pre-writing practice on a tray with corn meal

After using fingers to write, try using a writing utensil. Encourage using the tripod grip on the utensil.

corn meal writing

If you don’t have corn meal, you can also use sand or sugar!

sensory writing tray

Tweezers

An easy fine motor activity is using tweezers or tongs to transfer objects. Even toddlers can try this one out! I love this skunk tweezer we found at a local education store.

pom poms and tweezers

Clothespins

Opening a clothespin takes a lot of strength. I love using count and clip cards to practice using clothespins. The child simply counts the objects on the card and then puts a clothespin on the correct number. You can download a free copy of our desert animals clip cards here or kite clip cards here.

count and clip cards with clothespins

Scrunching Paper

Just scrunching paper into a ball is great for building hand strength! You could use newspaper, tissue paper, wrapping paper, or regular paper. And what kid doesn’t love throwing paper balls?!

scrunching newspaper for hand strength

Droppers

Simply take a glass of water and have your child practice using a water dropper. I colored our water with food coloring and had him transfer all the water from one cup to the other. The squeezing motion will help build strength in the child’s hand and is also fantastic for hand-eye coordination. Kids will love this activity, too!

squeezing dropper for hand strength

While it’s important to do fine motor activities, also give your child opportunities to practice using writing utensils with worksheets. Let them use markers, crayons, colored pencils, dry erase markers, etc. Another tip is to break crayons in half so it’s easier to write with.

writing with marker

Lastly, I love using shaving cream for pre-writing skills! It can get a bit messy, but kids will have a blast! It’s a great sensory activity, too.

shaving cream sight words

The key to good handwriting is continual practice with fine motor skills. If your child has poor handwriting, it may be they need more practice with fine motor skills. To read more on this subject, I recommend reading this article on teaching handwriting written by my OT blogging friend.

After a couple weeks of doing these pre-writing activities, I’ve noticed an improvement of strength in his hands and better handwriting! And he feels much more confident in writing. We’ll continue to work on this!

If you’re ready to move towards writing, make sure to check out my letter formations printables! These are great for learning how to write alphabet letters!

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Filed Under: Preschool, Writing Tagged With: fine motor skills, writing

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  1. Richa says

    October 18, 2021 at 5:57 am

    Great Ideas Angela! Will definitely use these to help my 3-yr old.

    Reply
  2. Gina J says

    December 20, 2020 at 4:33 am

    I’m a new preschool teacher for 3-4 yr olds. Thank you for all the amazing ideas!

    Reply
  3. Julia says

    November 4, 2020 at 2:53 am

    Thank you for sharing, I was frustrated to see my son struggling with his writing skills, definitely I will practice it with him.

    Reply
  4. JoAnn Wilder says

    April 15, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    Thank you so much for these great ideas. I plan to pass them on to my nephew to use with his little one!
    Sincerely,
    Jo

    Reply
  5. Andrea says

    June 22, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    These are great! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  6. anagha says

    February 23, 2019 at 8:08 pm

    Thanks a lot for your good tips one kind request to you give me such more tips so i can apply on my pre school kids. thank u so much.

    Reply
  7. Amber says

    May 17, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    Hi, I found the skunk tweezers. I’m unsure if someone may have already posted the website but here it is https://dough.tools/products/animal-tweezers . Thanks for the great ideas! I can’t wait to practice with my three-year-old.

    Reply
    • Angela Thayer says

      May 18, 2018 at 6:26 am

      Thank you for sharing!! We still use the skunk tweezers…they are a favorite!

      Reply
  8. Oyanni says

    August 7, 2017 at 6:27 am

    Wonderful ideas! Thank you for sharing

    Reply
  9. Stephanie says

    April 24, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    The animal tweezers can be found here https://dough.tools/products/animal-tweezers

    Reply
    • Angela says

      July 18, 2017 at 11:12 am

      Thank you for linking my playdough tools store, Stephanie. Dough Tools is based in Australia. In the US, Amazon sell those as “Pipsqueak Squeezers”.

      Reply
  10. AAR says

    January 31, 2017 at 8:36 am

    Thanks a loads!!

    Reply
  11. Rutchel says

    April 24, 2016 at 9:00 am

    These are incredibly good ideas. Have tried out a couple with my son and they are fun.
    Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  12. lavenderpreschool says

    November 22, 2015 at 6:24 am

    These are very effective ideas.thank you very much

    Reply
  13. Risna says

    August 24, 2015 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks a lot for your tips.now I am doing this activities with my child.my kindly request for you to provide me with more and more such tips.thanks

    Reply
  14. Reshmi says

    June 1, 2015 at 6:26 am

    Thanks that was amazing!.

    Reply
  15. Pen Mama says

    October 18, 2014 at 12:01 am

    These are some great ideas! Thanks for sharing! I’m going to try them out with my kids.
    Pen Mama recently posted…Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen ReviewMy Profile

    Reply
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