Mark Making Outdoors

Playing outside offers a great opportunity to explore making marks with lots of different materials. Early mark making is wonderful for supporting the development of fine motor control and is an important step towards learning to read and write. Initially a child’s exploration may seem random and uncontrolled, over time they will refine their skills and begin to make patterns, lines and pictures which are more meaningful and more easily recognisable.

Go big

When mark making outdoors, children are able to be big and bold and mess is less of a worry. You can use any medium you like; big sticks of sidewalk chalk, paint, sand, crayons! And any surface can be your canvas; long rolls of paper, fence panels, chalkboards, patio and tarmac.

Get wet

If you are concerned about mess, then mark making with water is a great alternative. Children can use paintbrushes, rollers, toothbrushes and sponges of various sizes to dip into a pot of water and to make marks on a chalkboard, fences or patio. ‘Painting’ with water is also a good way to wash away any chalk lines and drawings. A child can be encouraged to overwrite on a pattern, letters or numbers you have drawn too. An aquadoodle is also a lovely way to explore early mark making.

Join in

By getting involved in mark making together with your child you are supporting their ability to attend to this type of activity for longer. It enables the child to copy from a model and also to develop their understanding of language relating to colour, shape and size. Together you can be more creative and keep making marks fun. Celebrate the marks your child is making, praise their efforts and take photos when you can. This encouragement is important in maintaining their enthusiasm for developing key pre writing skills. It is lovely for the child to share photos with family members or pre-school staff and you will be able look back on the photos to see the progress your child has made with their emergent writing.

Here are 5 quick OT tips to support prewriting through mark making: 

• Use short pieces of chalk, crayons and larger diameter pencils (shorter lengths) to help them learn how to control the pencil with their fingers. These are my favourite crayons. https://www.babipur.co.uk/crayon-rocks-bag-of-8.html…

• When colouring or drawing, don't just sit at the table - have them lie on their tummy on the grass or stand up at an easel or a wall to help develop their shoulder and wrist stability
  Doodling is what it’s all about - learning how to move the pencil in all directions - from small snails to big rainbows or buildings! Talk about 'up, down, around' so they are prepared for writing letters at school.

• Encourage them to 'point the pencil to the top' of the page or board - this will help their wrist get into a good position and their fingers to move the pencil.

• If they want to write their name, help them by making the letter using natural materials when outside such as sticks or pebbles, then trace it with their finger. Then help them to draw 'hand-over-hand' talking about which direction they are moving the pencil.

And most importantly - HAVE FUN!

Happy mark making!

To get more of our top tips and tools join our Confident Communicators Group (supporting development for 2 – 5 year olds).

The group is open to parents/ carers/ grandparents and early years practitioners.

Do come along and join us!