Johnson House
Preschool
Story by Senior Occupational Therapist Justine
Incorporating ‘pre writing concepts’ in a play-based way has continued to be a focus for the children in Johnson House preschool. Pre writing concepts can happen anywhere and, more often than not, don’t need to involve a pencil and paper!
Sand trays are a fantastic way to help children work on line formation, line control and simple shapes. Opportunities to master control of lines, curves and shapes is really important for the later learning of how these patterns can then be pieced together to form a letter or number. Keeping the activity relatively ‘error free’ also means that the focus can be on building confidence and skills – the best foundations for writing later on.
The added tactile sensory input of sand encourages movement and learning in a multi-sensory way. Sensory-enhanced tactile learning experiences are essential for brain development because when a sense is engaged, neural pathways are being created to assist with further learning.
