Mark Making

How many ways can a toddler make marks?

What resources do you need?

Does it just have to be crayons and paper?

 These may be some of the questions you ask yourself. 

I wanted to write my next blog on 'mark making' mainly because being a Primary School Teacher I know how important this skill is in their future lives. Give your children as many opportunities as you can from the youngest of ages. Its taken me awhile to get these photos together. As you can imagine teaching full time, having a toddler and trying to get ready for Christmas hasn't been the easiest.

I have tried to show you a variety of different ways with a range of materials.

Here I set up a messy play activity in the garden. 

Using a cheap shaving foam on a tray allow you little one to explore using leaves, sticks, vegetables etc. Oscar particularly liked rolling his pumpkin in the shaving foam and then along the grass. 

Trailer of rice - let them see how the grains separate as they wiggle their stick through it.

Play dough - stick anything in it and when they pull the items out they are left with the holes.

Sellotape a piece of paper to a tray and give them a bunch of crayons. 

Remember to draw with you children as they love to learn from you. They will looked at how you hold a pencil and even how you mark the paper. 

We had previously gone on a walk before drawing and saw lots of trees so I decided to draw a tree linking it back to what we had seen.

Writing their name.

I do this nearly EVERYDAY. I really believe it is so important for children to see their name written. I write it nearly everytime we do drawings. He has already started to remember a few letter sounds from his name which is amazing for 20 months old. He even spotted an 'o' on a street sign the other day. (Proud mummy moment)

Play dough

Is a great resource for not only mark making with any utensils you can find but also for find motor skills - squeezing, pushing, squashing, picking etc

I made two different play doughs here - one with glitter and one without.

Bath crayons

Mothercare - £6

We are now onto our third pack of these. They are honestly one of the best things we ever got given for Oscar. He absolutely loves them and must draw in the bath 5 days a week. It does take a little extra time to get the marks off the bath but all you need is a baby wipe. He is actually really good at cleaning the majority of it off himself now. 

Vegetable patch

Using an old plastic container, fill it with soil and a variety of vegetables. Allow them to move the vegetables how they please and watch them make marks and holes in the soil with rakes etc. 

Painting

I will be honest, I have hardly painted with Oscar. I think i'm actually scared of what my kitchen will look like at the end of it. So I came across this method of using clingfilm. Put bits of paint on the paper then cover it with clingfilm. Pass the board over to your little one and watch them spread they paint all over WITH NO MESS :)

Sand

As you've hopefully seen on my previous posts the sand and water pit from Mothercare is one of our favourite things. We use it in so many different ways. Children mark marking in sand is perfect as they can mark and rub away.

My childminder told me about the KINECT SAND. Wow, if you have seen it try it.

We bought the 'Sand alive' version. It's brilliant  - a great sand for them to use in doors as well wet and cold days. We just put it on this messy play mat again from Mothercare.

Messy play mat

Thank you for taking time to read my blog. I hope you have enjoyed it and maybe want to try some of the things we have done together. 

If you have enjoyed reading this please look at my previous blogs. My next one will be colours.

Thanks 

Sam

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