As mentioned in the previous post, we have been doing a little review of our concepts and part of our review included a fun alphabet book. To build on our book we had fun playing a building block drawing game…
The book “Z is for Moose” by Kelly Bingham is a simple alphabet book but what makes this book particularly fun is the moose that keeps interrupting the book while anxiously awaiting to be included in the book. After all, “M” should be for “Moose” right? Well, the moose was just going to have to wait to find out…
It took just a bit of explaining for the children to understand why the moose kept interrupting our story but soon they were enjoying the antics of the moose while also getting a simple review of all the letters in the alphabet…
After the we read our story, the children found a set of small alphabet blocks, purchased at the Dollar Tree, and crayons out on one of our tables to explore building block drawing…
There were shapes, numbers, and letters on our blocks so the children had a choice of what to draw as they played the game. The building block drawing game goes like this: choose a block, give it a toss, and draw whatever you see but if you don’t like it, toss the block again or choose a new block…
The rules of the game are purposely left wide open for interpretation. Some children preferred a little block stacking along the way too…
Some of the children chose to try drawing the objects they found on the blocks…
While some of the children preferred focusing on drawing letters or numbers…
The block game even inspired the children to compare and contrast the illustrations they were finding on their blocks…
We had all sorts of terrific conversations about letters and numbers going on all throughout the morning as the children played the game. Keep in mind that this wasn’t a process to promote formal handwriting but a process to inspire drawing something new and different as well as a fun way to get the children thinking and talking about letters and numbers…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Draw with Art Dice from Tinkerlab
Number Drawing and Simon Says Drawing from Activity Mom
Building Block Blueprints from Teach Preschool
What fun! I love this book and idea. I did a series of activities on Moose: moose on the loose (rhyming words), let’s make a moose (messy play), chocolate moose (cooking with kids) and more. Have you read any of the Morris the Moose books?
I haven’t read them! Thank you for the recommendations!!
What a great idea!! Will totally be doing this with my toddler today!!!
What an awesome dollar store find! I like the open ended activity as well so as not to force writing or copying. Saw all those beautiful crayons hard to do but if you break them into small pieces the kids have to use a nice grasp on the crayon. Although your kids do seem to have good grasps. It is all those fine and gross motor activities you do!
Great tip – I think I will put together a basket of broken crayons for those who want to give them a try!
I love your open ideas. This would be perfect for my 4 AND 6 year old!
This is definitely open enough for lots of ages!
did you find the abc blocks at the dollar tree recently? would love to have a set of those! thanks for the great activity ideas!
Yes, about 2 weeks ago.
I love this idea! So simple, but so fun. I know my kids would enjoy this. Thanks so much!
I simply love this idea! So innovative and creative! I am always interested in fun ideas to promote fine motor and pre-handwriting skills! Thanks for sharing. I’ve pinned!