Writing In The Sand
The beach is a fantastic open canvas, so why not turn a trip to your closest shoreline into a great writing experience for your child.
Doing The Activity:
We all love a trip to the beach, so here are a few helpful ideas to make the most of your day out:
- Ask your child to make marks in the sand using a stick - vertical and horizontal lines, circles and crosses are a great start.
- You can encourage your child to copy your mark making then ask them to make marks for you to copy.
- Talk about the marks and letters you make and the movements you make to create them. For example say "I'm starting here, then going down, then stop", "I'm starting here, then going round and round" or "I'm going to make M for Mummy".
- For some extra variety you can use pebbles, shells, driftwood and seaweed to make shapes in the sand together.
What You Need To Know:
Writing in the sand at the beach might seem like just a bit of fun, but it also has a number of developmental benefits, including:
- Helping your child develop the skills and confidence to form the connecting lines and curves, as well as the vertical, horizontal and zig-zag lines that form the basis of letters.
- Developing your child's hand-eye coordination skills and allowing their manual dexterity skills to mature and integrate.
- Allowing your child to receive kinaesthetic feedback, which is a key component of motor control for legible handwriting. This naturally develops when your child associates a mark or letter with the actions that creates it.
Top Tip
This activity is applicable to children of all ages, especially toddlers and preschoolers. So give this activity a try next time you are at the beach.
