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This resource offers educators a learning corner activity for children to practice name writing. Through this activity, children will be developing their fine motor skills. This is supported by NAEYC (2017) that name writing increases children's conceptual and procedural knowledge.

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Perfect for a preschool name tracing worksheet and name learning activity with alternative font choices make this name tracing generator & printable easy to make and use!

My 5 year old is finally showing interest in his letters and boy oh boy is that learning accelerating! He seems to be a bit hung up on writing his name though and I think it might be the R and e that are proving difficult for him. So I came up with this lovely printable. Then I thought, you know what, I bet other kids have this issue too. I then told my husband and he made me this nifty little code for my blog so that my readers could also get this printable totally personalized. OK, so lets get started.

Name Tracing Worksheet Printable

This printable name tracing worksheet is great for your child learning their name as well as forming those letters. In future posts I am going to be doing a few ideas on forming those letters to help my little guy out, so keep an eye for those.

I printed out a page for each of my 3 kids. I love these learning resources pockets to use dry erase pens on. The kids write and remove as many times as their focus allows.

My 5 year old did his name 6 times before interest was lost for this session. My 2 and half year old tired once and decided that drawing and erasing was simply better.

You can of course just print them and use them without using a cover.

These are also great in a class room setting as the letters are the perfect size for preschoolers!

I use these plastic pockets for a wide variety of printables from mazes to line tracing .

Good stuff right!? The dry erase pen is just the same one we use for the whiteboard. I have thinner pens on order for a better grip. I recommend these .

Free printable name tracing worksheets

Now the fun bit!

To get your OWN free name tracing printable and follow the prompts! You will be taken to my new site CreatePrintables.com to make this name tracing page!

But before you go, please share this so that other children can benefit from it too.

PIN IT:

I recommend these extra activities for name learning:

I would love to hear how you are using these name tracing worksheets so please feel free to leave me a comment!

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FREE Name Tracing Worksheet Printable + Font Choices

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Perfect for a preschool name tracing worksheet and name learning activity with alternative font choices make this name tracing generator & printable easy to make and use! My 5 year old is finally showing interest in his letters and boy oh boy is that learning accelerating!

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This resource offers educators a variety of playdough activities. Educators can integrate the use of playdough not only to work on children's fine motor skills but also integrating to other domains such as language and literacy. According to Wang, 2014; Cadoret, 2018; Oberer, Gashaj, Roebers, 2017 , it is evident that there is a close relationship between fine motor development and other aspects of language, literacy, and cognitive development.

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Manipulating playdough is a perfect way to strengthen fine motor skills, charge up creativity and relax the mind. It's also perfect for reinforcing concepts in every subject area...and it's not just for the little ones! Although they might not admit it, big kids love playdough as much as their little brothers and sisters; and of course all kids can benefit from multisensory hands-on learning, regardless of their age.

Mix up a few batches of playdough and add this simple hands-on learning tool to your literacy routine this school year.

Here are some ideas:

Use plastic animals or other toys to stamp out a scene. Use the scene as a setting for a story.

Make characters with playdough and act out or retell a story.

Kids can make a playdough figure to represent themselves. Use the figure to think through a procedure by "acting out" how the character completes the steps in a process. This is great to accompany procedural writing lessons, and it's especially helpful for kids who struggle with remembering and completing oral directions.

Make a simple playdough scene to represent each main event in a story or main idea in nonfiction text passage.

Use letter stamps to stamp sight words and spelling words.

Form letters and arrange to spell sight words or spelling words.

Write spelling words in large letters. Place the sheet of paper inside a plastic page protector. Roll up a little ball of playdough and squish it over some of the letters in each word. Identify the covered letter(s).

Form a ball of playdough to represent each sound in a word.

Allow kids to manipulate playdough quietly while listening to a story. It keeps busy hands occupied and if they create objects to represent what is being read, it can help them visualize the text.

Use playdough to model a science concept and explain the concept orally, using the models.

Represent the meaning of new vocabulary terms with playdough.

A few tips: Playdough and carpet really don't mix. Choose a carpet-free area to work, or use a splat mat under the table. Add a few drops of scented oil to invigorate or calm kids. My faves are lemon or peppermint (to wake up) or lavender (to calm down.)

This is the recipe I use... It makes enough for 2-3 kids to use at a time.

Ingredients:

2 cup water
2 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Food coloring
A few drops of scented oil

Add all ingredients to a pot and stir constantly while cooking over medium heat. When everything is mixed together and it forms a large ball, remove it from the heat. Scoop out the ball and let it cool slightly on the counter. After it cools, knead it until it feels like playdough and there are no lumps.

You could also do a quick Pinterest search to find lots more alternatives, including gluten-free playdough, no-cook playdough, coffee scented playdough...yum!

If you enjoyed this bright idea, please check out our BRIGHT IDEAS FOR THE CLASSROOM board on Pinterest and follow me over on Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest or Facebook!

For more ideas from 150 different bloggers, you can browse through the link-up below. Thanks so much for visiting!

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Playdough and Literacy - Home Literacy Blueprint

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Manipulating playdough is a perfect way to strengthen fine motor skills, charge up creativity and relax the mind. It's also perfect for reinforcing concepts in every subject area...and it's not just for the little ones!

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This resource offers educators an understanding of how children develop their handwriting grip. The diagram shows the different hand grasp that educators will observe. It is important that educators can model the correct ways and provide the right writing materials. According to Bonney (1992), children who struggle to acquire and master handwriting skills may experience frustration and anxiety, which in turn may negatively affect overall school performance.

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This resource offers educators a range of activities for children to practice invented and conventional spelling. It is important that educators supports invented and conventional spelling. This is because it is a necessary stage to develop the proficiency as a competent and confident writer. According to Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017) , Allowing children to engage in the analytical process of invented spelling, followed by appropriate feedback, has been found to facilitate learning to read and spell, not hamper the process.

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Has your spelling practice become dry or boring? Well, brush off the dust and try some of these hands-on spelling activities!

Since readers need to have BOTH phonics and sight words understanding to become good readers, focusing on both phonics AND sight words during spelling instruction is a great way to help words "stick" in a child's memory.

When words are taken out of the context of a book and their patterns, letters, and parts are studied, it forces readers to slow down and really take it all the word has to offer them. This, in turn, helps them become better readers.

So today, I'd like to share 50 of my favorite hands-on spelling activities for phonics and sight words. Many of these are included in the back of my ebook, Teaching Kids to Spell.

Did you know you can find 700+ pages of printable spelling activities and games in my ebook? Yes! That's enough to cover an entire year of spelling fun!

50 Hands-on Spelling Activities

Most all of these activities can be adapted for either phonics OR sight words. You can also insert your child's spelling list into the activity instead of using the specific words shown in the post.

1. Scoop & Spell {This Reading Mama}

2. Sidewalk Chalk Spelling Hop {Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational}

3. Stamp Your Words {Lessons Learnt Journal}

4. Go on a Word Treasure Hunt {Hands On: As we Grow}

5. Make a Spelling Word Search Puzzle {This Reading Mama}

6. Use a Spelling Dictionary {The Measured Mom}

7. Dot Sticker Spelling {School Time Snippets}

8. Post-a-Word {This Reading Mama}

9. Make a Giant Crossword Puzzle {A Mom with a Lesson Plan}

10. Phonics Jumping Game {Learners in Bloom}

11. Play Word Rocket {Playdough to Plato}

12. Spell with Beads {Frugal Fun 4 Boys}

13. Spell with LEGO Letters {This Reading Mama}

14. Spell the Most Words Game {No Time for Flashcards}

15. Spinning Straw Spellers {Still Playing School}

16. Build Words with Rocks {Sugar Ants}

17. Glitter Spelling {Here Come the Girls}

18. Play Word Bump! {This Reading Mama}

19. Roll a Sight Word {I Can Teach My Child}

20. Making Words {Buggy and Buddy}

21. Paint your Words {Childhood 101}

22. Oversized Letter Cards for Spelling {This Reading Mama}

23. Seek and Find Spelling Game {What Do We Do All Day?}

24. Rainbow Write Your Words {Nurture Store}

25. Words 3 Ways {Teach Mama}

26. Use Crayon Resist {This Reading Mama}

27. Spell with Pipe Cleaners {Make and Takes}

28. Spell with Your Fingers {Home School Innovation}

29. Use Word Sorts {This Reading Mama}

30. Spell with Cereal {A Mom with a Lesson Plan}

31. Finger Tap Spelling {This Reading Mama}

32. Car Track Delivery Spelling Game {Stay at Home Educator}

33. Make a Chalkboard Refrigerator Game {Enchanted Homeschooling Mom}

34. Visual Spelling Practice {Home Literacy Blueprint}

35. Roll & Cover Spelling Words {This Reading Mama}

36. Make a Spelling Garage {123 Homeschool 4 Me}

37. Roll and Spell {Well-Nurtured Plants and Pillars}

38. Letter Lacing {Mama Miss}

39. Roll & Write Words {This Reading Mama}

40. Spelling Hangman {Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas}

41. Waffle Words Spelling Game {The Homeschool Post}

42. Use a Board Game {Teach Beside Me}

43. Spell with a Word Family Dictionary {guest post on The Measured Mom}

44. Play a Word Stretching Game {The Pleasantest Thing}

45. DIY Spelling Word Puzzles {This Reading Mama}

45. Allow Invented Spelling {1+1+1=1}

46. Spelling Puzzles {No Time for Flash Cards}

47. Missing Letter Spelling Game {Imagination Soup}

48. Ride to Spell {This Reading Mama}

49. Spelling Battleship {Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational}

50. Clip a Word {Sugar Ants}

51. Bottle Cap Spelling {This Reading Mama}

More Spelling Activities and Resources:

Go digital with spelling! Read all about my educational apps or purchase them on iTunes or Google Play!

is a fantastic spelling program using the Orton-Gillingham methods. Hands-on work is a big part of All About Spelling!
Using Words Their Way to Teach Spelling 5 Things Struggling Spellers Need
Enjoy teaching!
~Becky

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50 Hands-On Spelling Activities {for Phonics and Sight Words}

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Has your spelling practice become dry or boring? Well, brush off the dust and try some of these hands-on spelling activities! Since readers need to have BOTH phonics and sight words understanding to become good readers, focusing on both phonics AND sight words during spelling instruction is a great way to help words "stick" in a child's memory.

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This resource offers educators an idea of the different stages they can look out for in early writing. In early writing, children can recognise and differentiate the upper and lower case. These stages allows educators to gauge the children's capabilities in their writing and look out for ways to enhance the children's capabilities.

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This resource serves as a platform for children to express their thoughts, opinions and feelings through writing. A few examples from the literacy journal include 'I went to the carnival and ate ice-cream. I like the carnival'. Through this activity, children are exposed to more writing practices which will enhance their writing. This is evident by Roskos, Christie & Richgels (2003) who stated that it is essential that children are exposed to writing practices daily through the use of writing materials used in play. Such materials include pencils and notepads to convey thank you messages, making grocery lists and more.

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This resource offers educators a guide to identify children's pre-writing skills through informal assessment. The skills checklist consists of the developmental milestone of writing in children. Based on these milestones, educators are able to find out their children's abilities. According to the Nurturing Early Learners Guide, one of the iTeach principles focuses on the importance of observation and assessment in children's learning and development (Ministry of Education, 2013). Hence, conducting observations and assessments are essential in order to aid in child's writing development and progress as educators are able to intervene and guide children who are in need.

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This resource offers children a platform to practice their fine motor skills. These chalkboards can be placed at the literacy corner and children are given the opportunities to do free hand scribbling and doodling using chalk or water painting technique on the chalkboard. Hence, giving them ample opportunities to practice their fine motor skills which will then aid in their progression to other stages of writing. As stated by Lorenz, Green & Brown (2009), prewriting strategies are important for students as it is the stage of the writing process whereby they are starting to transfer ideas out on paper with the use of a writing tool.

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This resource provides educators a series of ideas to create a writing corner that can help enhance children's capabilities in writing. The presence of a writing center helps children explore the different writing tools available. Not only that, children will also use a progressively complicated and diverse vocabulary, grammar and syntax in discussions and storytelling through drawing and printing. This is supported by Piaget's cognitive development theory where in pre-operational stage children begin to think symbolically and learn to use words and pictures to represent objects.

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Writing center set up pictures, ideas and resources for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten.

Writing Center Set Up in Preschool

How to set up and organize a writing center in your preschool, pre-k, Head Start or kindergarten classroom.

Here are some pictures of the materials young children enjoy using in this center so you can get a better idea of how it is set up.

The Best Writing Tools

Writing Center Supplies

Craft Paper Punches: Young children love using craft punches to make many different shapes. They enjoy gluing these shapes to paper and drawing and writing about them.

Writing Center Sign: These center signs list what the children are learning in the writing center. You can read more about these signs HERE.

Cutting Practice: This consists of the fronts of old greeting cards. Ask your family and friends collect these for you. Students cut the pictures out and glue them to paper, then write about their pictures. The children are highly motivated to use the cards, it is one of their favorite activities at the writing center and a great way to practice scissor skills. The thickness of the cards offers more resistance; making it easier for little hands to cut.

Clipboards: Students can use crayons or markers to write on sheets of blank paper attached to the clipboards. They can walk around the room and record their observations or copy print, this is another one of their favorite activities.

Dry Erase Boards: Children love to use markers to draw, write, and erase on these boards. You can place dry erase boards and clipboards in stacking file trays for easy storage.

Preschool Writing Center

Alphabet Ink Stamps Keep your alphabet stamps organized by storing them in ice cube trays. Write a letter in each empty space using a permanent marker and the students can match the stamps to the correct space. The students enjoy stamping their names, names of their friends, or words with the ink stamps.

Paper: Students have several different types of paper to choose from. Regular white copy paper, half sheets of copy paper, and half sheets of construction paper so they can make covers for their books. You can read more about this sturdy paper organizer here.

Sandpaper Letters: Place skinned crayons with these sandpaper letters and students can use half sheets of paper to create crayon rubbings of the letters.

Pasting Pieces: These alphabet pasting pieces are always huge hit in my classroom. The students like to glue the letters to paper and spell their names and the names of their friends or even words.

How to Set Up a Writing Center

Above is a close up picture of how I store supplies such as markers, pencils, scissors and glue. These plastic storage drawers can be purchased at most big box stores. I added labels to the front of each drawer from my Classroom Organization Bundle.

Each table in the classroom has a crayon caddy so crayons are readily available throughout the room and don't need a separate storage space in the writing center.

I also have a kid friendly stapler that staples papers without actual staples. It only staples up to 3 or 4 sheets of copy paper at a time, but that's plenty to keep the kids happy.

Writing Center Broadcast

Writing Resources

More Center Ideas from Pre-K Pages

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Writing Center for Preschool and Kindergarten

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How to set up and organize a writing center in your pre-k, preschool, Head Start, and kindergarten classroom. See pictures of my writing center and suggestions for materials to stock your writing center. A writing center can help create motivation to write for a purpose.

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This resource offers educators a song with actions that helps children in learning the correct way to hold a pencil. Through this activity, it helps children in practicing and mastering their pencil grasp in order to progress on to other stages of writing. This is supported by Ministry of Education (2013) who stated that children should be given opportunities to engage in activities that strengthen their hand and finger muscles in order to develop dexterity.

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Learn Correct Pencil Grasp ( pencil pick up) Teaches Functional Dynamic Tripod Grasp

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This resource offers educators an idea of an activity to help children develop and strengthen their hand and finger muscles used to hold and control pencils and crayons. One of the 4 stages of learning to write is movement of their hands. Thus, fine motor development is essential in developing the ability to mark make and write effectively. According to Huffman and Fortenberry (2011), writing progress depends largely on the development of fine motor skills involving small muscle movements in the hand.

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This resource offers educators a strategy that they can use in class to help emergent writers. This refers to learning the forms and functions of writing as children observe and participate in writing events that are directed by educators. Thus, children  practice making decisions and solving problems as educators do with a high level of scaffolding. This is supported by Bruner's model (1976) of scaffolding of learning. Where he believes that structured interaction between the child and the educator is reminiscent of the scaffolding that supports the construction of a building. On top of that, educators can use the Learning Experience Approach (LEA) shared in the NEL to better enhance their understanding on shared writing.

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This resource serves as a purpose that helps educators understand what this stage of writing is about and the importance of it. It also gives an idea to educators the importance of their role to help children who are in this stage. As educators observe writing taking place in school, which in return can help assess children's capabilities and provide them with right activities and tools. This is supported by the Zone of proximal development of Vygotsky (1978), through which an educator reinforce and make ease a child's present capacity to the next level.

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This resource offers educators and children a platform to collate familiar and new words learnt daily. For this activity, children are encouraged to choose a word to focus on daily. For example, the word "said". Following, both children and educators are to find synonyms for the word "said" through story telling sessions, their time at the literacy corner, literacy lessons or even routine time. Examples of synonyms may include 'mentioned', 'shared', 'replied' or 'added'. These synonyms are then added under 'New words' at the word wall. These words serve as visual aids for children for their independent writing too. Ministry of Education (2013) stated that the use of visual aids and prints encourages children to be curious learners, which will then motivate them to learn to recognise and read words around them. Thus, promoting children in expanding their vocabulary as well as aiding them in transitional writing.

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The use of learning corner to improve purposeful writing 

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The use of learning corner to improve purposeful writing 

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This resources serves ideas to educators to incorporate literacy component in their learning corners. As these activities are planned and teacher facilitated. This gives opportunity for children to learn concepts, ideas and having open discussion with their peers. This is supported by Froebel (1782-1852) "natural learning of child through planned environment".

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This resource serves as a writing guide for children to practice transitional writing. This writing chart helps children in crafting their ideas and putting it into words. For example, prompts include 'Describe the weather today. How do you feel about it?' Wileman (1993) stated that children will have the ability to interpret, understand all information through visual elements such as pictures. Hence, guiding children in enhancing their writing development.

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This resource offers children a chart guide on sight words that they can use for their writing practices. These sight words are the words that were taught during their literacy lessons in school. This chart serves as a visual guide for children who needs more assistance in blending and spelling of the words. This is supported by Blackwell and Laman (2013) who stated that one of the effective and efficient strategies to teach and reinforce words are through sight word instruction such as traditional flashcard method and picture-cards method.

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This resource serves as a learning corner activity for the children to practice writing letters to their friends and families. This learning corner activity encourages children to write positive messages to their loved ones. A few examples could include 'Thank you for making breakfast for me today, mummy'. or 'I like your smile, Candice'. Byington and Kim (2017) stated that all learning centre activities should include writing and that it is recommended for them to practice daily. Thus, adding in a writing component in a dramatic play corner can serve as good exposure and practice for children to enhance their writing.

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This resource offers educators a pre-writing learning corner activity for the children to practice making strokes using their fingers or other tools such as cotton buds or ice-cream sticks on a sand tray. This activity helps children in practicing their eye hand coordination and fine motor skills which will then aid greatly in the further stages of writing. Researchers suggest that children should not be introduced to formal writing until they have been introduced to and mastered handwriting readiness, or pre-writing skills (Tseng & Chow, 2000).

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This resource offers educators to introduce and reinforce phonics through a story-based approach. Letterland phonics makes learning to write fun for educators and children through their multi-sensory resources such as pictograms, songs, and videos.  Blackwell and Laman (2013) stated that the use of picture-supported teaching method helps in language and fluency. Educators can use this resource as prompts and visual aids in writing practice.