Learning about letters and letter formation through painting
After lots of homeschooling over the last year, I have been looking at different ways to make learning more fun. Painting is always a go-to activity for me as you can adapt it in so many ways and sneak in lots of learning opportunities. Today’s painting activity involves learning all about letters and letter formation.
What you need:
- Paints – I always try to use washable paints to help with the cleaning-up process.
- Pieces of paper with lots of different letters written on each one in pencil.
What to do:
Lay the letter cards in front of your children and encourage them to trace over the letters with the paints. We used our fingers, but you can use a paintbrush or any other painting materials. Whilst painting over the letters, make sure you are chatting about the letter you are doing and how it is formed. Remember that children learn through repetition so you can try having lots of the same letters, to help your child learn better.
Ways to adapt and expand the activity:
- My children have followed the ‘Read Write inc’ program at school, so you could try and incorporate the way they teach letters into the activity. For example, when doing an ‘a’ sound, explain that to write ‘a’ you go ‘around the apple and down the leaf’.
- When your painted letter cards are dry you could laminate them and use them as letter cards. You can then use your letter cards to spell out words or other activities.
- Lay your letters cards out on the floor and put them in alphabetical order.
- For older children, you can get them to write the letters on the paper before the activity.
- To practice scissor control you could cut the letters out once they have dried.
Cover photo by By Gemütlichkeit on Canva
