I know writing and moving your body are not typically seen together. Prewriting with colors is like a little secret mission. Here, your child is moving left to right, along with seeing lines like straights, zigzags, and curves, just like we form lines and letters. We help our children connect to the alphabet’s letters when we prewrite with colors and movement. Better yet? Your preschooler is color sorting with movement too! So many wins with this easy activity for kids.
RELATED: Love activities that explore color? Me too. Here are 35+ Brilliant Color Activities you’ll adore.
Prewriting meets color sorting
This color activity helps children learn in many ways:
- Introducing primary colors
- Left to right progression (how we read and write)
- Using new vocabulary words such as sort, classify, and transportation
- We are connecting the body with prewriting movements when following the lines
And it’s not our first rodeo with writing without pencils! Before we ask a child to form a letter, we must consider fine motor activities to strengthen fingers, hands, and wrists.
You can never have too many lines in your Breakfast Invitations and late afternoon activities. Show them, touch them, and talk about them!
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How does this help my preschooler write?
Let’s dive into what’s age-appropriate and the stages of writing. Your preschooler’s writing will progress over time. Here are four stages of writing as it develops:
- Drawing and Scribbling: Here is where writing development begins. The scribbles and drawings are interchangeable, and children may or may not discriminate between the two.
- Letters and Letter-Like Forms: Here, children begin to write letters they often see and feel most comfortable with. They understand the letter has a name but do not know that it is associated with a sound.
- Beginning Sounds: Here is where preschoolers recognize the sound-to-letter relationships and often use inventive spelling. The first letters in words match the correct beginning sound.
- Beginning and Ending Sounds: Children begin to write with spaces and have a correct beginning and ending sound when spelling and writing.
To move through the stages, we must offer children various ways to explore lines, and curves and track their eyes from left to right. Move over rain clouds and sick days. This activity is coming at ya!
Let’s get color sorting with movement
If you have some painter’s tape, toy trucks, and colored blocks, you are good to go! Here at Days with Grey, I repeatedly keep kid activities low prep using the same activity supplies.
Take a look around your home for the transportation toys to use to color sort.
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LEGO Duplos
Duplos also fall in our forever toy category. These bricks are another toy that is still played with by all three of my boys. Duplos are a terrific toy for your toddler that children will use for years.
Painter’s Tape
No one prepared me for how much painter’s tape we would go through! It is absolutely one of our favorite supplies for kid activities.
Construction Paper
The funny thing about construction paper is that sometimes it leaves out purple! This pack has everything you need to make Valentine’s hearts.
Setup in a flash!
- Use painter’s tape to draw quick and easy lines on the floor.
- Then, grab Duplos in primary colors.
- Make one line for the red Duplos, one for blue, and one for yellow using painter’s tape. I like to use delicate painter’s tape on my floors.
- Set up the “dumping zone” to the right of the activity.
- Invite your child to transport the primary colors from left to right following the road. You will likely watch your child sort the colored blocks and then carry this Breakfast Invitation into their own hands.
What happens next is even more magical.
After transporting the colors from left to right, the boys both ran over to grab more Duplos and transportation forms.
How do you get your child to play more?
- Start with small setups like Breakfast Invitations to play through learning.
- Try to build a predictable routine to improve the flow of your day.
- Allow the rhythm of play to develop over time. If you set the stage, you will see momentum grow over time.
When will you set up this color sorting with movement activity with your child?
FAQ
Examples of gross motor activities are balancing on a curb, jumping or hopping to different circles, hula hooping, or kicking a ball. Toddlers and preschoolers have plenty of time to develop the large muscles in their bodies as long as we give them opportunities to do so. Here are the best gross motor activities for kids.
I begin the day with play starting the boys with a Breakfast Invitation. This sets the intention for the day. But nothing is harder than kids reminding you all day that they are bored. When they do, I remind them that they can play or help me clean. Use these activity cards for kids to spark ideas.
Begin teaching your toddler colors by saying color words throughout the day as you hand a banana; share that the banana is yellow. When you offer a cup, use the color word before handing it to your child. You may say you’d like me to put milk in the blue cup. Use these color activities for kids to get started.
Great Idea! Thank you!
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