About the Activity
Is your little one struggling to sit and write long pages of Hindi letters over and over again?
Make it fun with this introductory activity for pre-writing skills!
Kids love the feel of clay in their hands and this activity combines play and learning through Lipi Tiles®.
Preparation
Clay or Play Dough of different colours
6 Lipi Tiles® pieces
6 everyday objects corresponding to the Lipi Tiles® pieces.
Activity
Tips
The Clay Craft activity can be done in a lot of different ways.
Associative Play: This activity is best done along with your child. For example, as your child models a letter, you could model a letter too. But try not to interfere in their play too often; just when they ask for help. Avoid touching your child’s clay creation before they ask you.
Writing Trial: Guide them to mould the clay in a way that’s similar to actually writing the letter. Follow the lines and curves of the letter just like if you were writing it.
Test their Visualisation: Try encouraging your child to mould the clay into a letter, just out of memory. You could try this towards the end of the activity or each time you move to another letter to mould.
Ask your child to help you clean up: And as always, any hands-on activity will be messy. Ask your child to help you clean up, and share the work. After all, when they learn through play, they need to take responsibility for their own learning too!
Benefits
The Clay Craft activity with Lipi Tiles® has some noteworthy benefits:
Fine motor skills: Your young learners work on their fine motor skills by playing and exercising their fingers as they mould the clay.
Visualise the letter: When they explore the texture and play with the clay, they’re coding the shape of the letter in their memory. That too, in ways that seem much more attractive to a little one than writing long pages over and over again. Well, at least in the beginning!
Develop pre-writing skills: All this prepares them for the writing skills they need to develop next.
Step 1
Take different colours of play dough.
Step 2
Select a few Lipi Tiles® and collect objects associated with them, along with your child.
Step 3
Let your child make clay models of each letter.
Step 4
Enunciate the letter and the word while moulding, with your child.
Step 5
Nudge them to experiment with different moulds and patterns for each letter and object.