Mark Making: Name Recognition With Paints

Support your child in recognising their name through mark making and painting. A fun way to encourage children to look at and explore the shape of letters in their name while getting a little messy and creative. 

Little Man is now four and we has started to have a real interest in how his name is spelt and is very keen on wanting to write his name however his confidence seem's to be holding him back. Every day that he goes into preschool he is expected to find his name on the board and to place it in the box. Most of the time he is able to do this and sometimes he has days where he struggles. At home home I thought I could do a few fun activities to help support him in recognising his name and so this is the first of many activities to follow on mark making. 

Resources:

• Paper plate or tray for paint ( I found some great paper bowls which reflected the paints colour and the suns light)
• paints
• cotton wool bud
• carrot
• paper yellow pen

We use two different types of painting tools to help Little man to slowly build up his confidence and this seemed to help as he wrote his name well with the cotton wool bud and did not ask for any help. His name was written in yellow pen so that he could see it but so once he had stamped or painted his name the pen would be more hidden letting his painting stand out more. 

It was interesting to see how he held the cotton wool bud like a pen. He has just started to get the hang of this grasp. Afterwards he was so proud that he could write his name he stuck them up on the wall and the following day wanted to take them into school to show his teachers. I'm glad he enjoyed this activity show we can move forward with his mark making. 

Links to Development Matters:

Physical Development

• Draws lines and circles using gross motor movements.

• Holds pencil between thumb and two fingers, no longer using whole-hand grasp.

• Holds pencil near point between first two fingers and thumb and uses it with good 

control.

• Can copy some letters, e.g. letters from their name.

Literacy: Reading Development

• Recognises familiar words and signs such as own name and advertising logos

Literacy: Writing Development 

• Sometimes gives meaning to marks as they draw and paint.