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Writing Games


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Hi!

 

I work in a DN specifically with the Maths and Literacy equipment. I need some exxciting and fun writing games to play with the children to encourage them to use the writing area.

 

I am not allowed to do ANY messy activities in my room so things with paint etc are a definite no no, but to be honest, the children are bored with textured paper, chalk boards and stencils and it seems that this is all I can get out for them. I have made name cards in different ways for the children and various other things but the writing area is exclusively for mark making using pencils, crayons, pens, chalk.

 

Any ideas would be gratefully received as I am quickly running out of ideas!

 

Thanks in advance!

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To enhamce the mark making area think of ways to give the children a 'reason' to make marks, ie: telephones, diaries, clipboards etc. Our children love whiteboards marking, erasing, marking, erasing, they love to repeat these actions over and over.

 

Combine mark making and number games, do simple records / graphs, on a whiteboard or large flip chart. The children can mark next to their name tick or cross if they have say, brown hair, long hair, short hair etc. My whiteboard is a flip chart stand :o so it doubles up for permanent recordings or wipe away ones. xD

 

Number lines with clothes pegs, sorting sequence of written numbers or cards with dots, pics etc, using the pegs also helps with pincer grip and fine motor skills.

 

Our boys especially loved writing with feathers, I know you say no messy stuff but a sponge filled with black paint as pretend ink and they can dip the feather in ( what is the hard ( nib) bit of a feather called?), or cotton buds for mark making too.

 

I have made cards with dots on, like a dice, laminated and they are used on the dough table, child rolls dough to place on dot, how many are there, how many more balls do you need to make to complete the card etc.

 

Peggy

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Im sorry Claire but I think its dreadful the children cant access paints etc!!Please tell me they have opportunity to paint and explore other materials elsewhere in their day?

I find during role play the children will always 'write'

Cafe menu's,clipboards for writing orders etc

Shops - shopping lists,prices,cheques etc

postoffices- parcels,letters envelopes

Bird twitching - bird chart

Traffic survey

Space role play is good for numbers

the list is endless

Sorry if Im not much help im sure others will follow :o

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No, those ideas are all fab, thanks!

 

Basically our pre-school is divided into three rooms, my room for maths and literacy, another for role play, small world and large construction and the third is the art room, where all the messy stuff takes place as well as sand and water, so the children are able to access all of the activities and areas of the curriculum just not at the same time. Although one of our policies is that the children can go to whichever room they choose at any time they choose, but this doesn't really happen.

 

I've done number lines in my room and insisted that the other rooms have number and letter lines/displays for the children rather than segregating it all in one room. The children seem to be more interested in these displays elsewhere in the nursery lol.

 

I've made some games up, largely taken from books but adapted to what I can and cannot do within the room, I was just really nosing around for any other inspiration, so thanks for your replies!

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A game to practise counting. We have a small basket filled with a variety of items, eg. plastic bugs, large beads, conkersetc. The children take it in turns to throw a dice and choose that number of items. After two rounds they count how many they have collected altogether, who has the most/the least.

Anita

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thank goodness :( Sorry for jumping to conclusions :(:o

 

No worries! xD The majority of people I speak to are shocked at our set up and to be honest so was I, but it works quite well actually unless of course you want to engage the children in mark making or maths activities requiring the use of messy resources!

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I can do that but I am a bit of a control freak and tend to want to carry out the focus activities that I plan so I get EXACTLY the information that I want/need. I think this will have to be one of the things I learn to let go of this coming college year!

 

I have got a couple of outside focuses planned next week so will be interesting to see how that goes.

 

Thanks again.

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I know you have no control of the set up of your nursery and have to work within the constraints put upon you, but the scenario that you describe bears no resemblance to reality! The whole point is that areas of the curriculum are definitions put into place for convenience by people but children actually play in a much more holistic manner. Therefore, it is actually not good to start your planning from the curriculum, as this is actually constraining what you might offer. Much better to plan an exciting and stimulating activity that the children are excited about and have fun with. If you take the time to then match up this with the curriculum you will find that you are actually covering most of it all the time. :o

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Have you got access to an Overhead Projector? Old hat I know but that does mean you can get them for free now.

I use ours for all sorts of things but ours love to put magnetic letters and numbers on the projector and see how it magically appears on the wall. Even the most reluctant child will search really hard for the initial letter of their name and are so excited when its on the wall and huge! The possibilities are endless - we also stick paper on the wall and then trace around the projected words, pictures or numbers. They can use junk materials and project shapes (maths) move the projector forwards and backwards to make the image bigger or smaller and use OHP pens on plastic pockets or transparency stuff to write and draw and then project...

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

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