Learning the Shapes of Letters with Manipulatives

My three year old has an aversion to putting pen to paper. Even making an “X” takes an exceptional amount of concentration. He has Sensory Processing Disorder which, believe it or not, effects his ability to write and draw. I can’t believe we’re already at the point of tears and we’ve barely even started this journey called education (alright, at least formal education.)

I’ve been trying my best to come up with fun ways to get Loopy to at least mimic the shape of two basic letters; “X” an “O”. We’ve used bingo markers and shaving cream smeared on a mirror so far.

Here’s a couple ideas for using letter manipulatives.

1. Pipe Cleaners

Draw the letter or shapes that you want your child to imitate on a piece of paper. Have the child fashion pipe cleaners in to those shapes.

2. Pom-Poms

With the same piece of paper, use colored pom-poms to make fuzzy letters.

3. Beans

Same idea as the pom-poms, just great fine motor control.

4. Glass stones

This time I made the letter shapes with small circles. Loopy was encouraged to place the beads in the circles IN ORDER.

This was the first letter shape’s activity that didn’t feel like pulling teeth. In fact, Loopy suggests the last manipulative for tracing his letters…

5. Googly Eyes

Same procedure as the glass beads. Don’t forget to have fun and cheer on your little writer!

What about you? Do you have a child that doesn’t like any sort of “handwriting” assignments? How did you get them to try new things?

 

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