
Toys and play are a great way to encourage your child to take up the pencil. Before we imagine them writing a sonnet, the shopping list, or love notes to Mum, let's work on the Pre-writing skills, the grip, the muscles and the shapes.
We are here to help you support your child's writing journey through play.
Building precision and control, lacing toys help children refine their pincer grip (with
the pointer and thumb) and hand-eye coordination. It also encourages them to
use that grip, try threading a bead without using your pincer grip. It's hard!
By threading a string through holes or beads, kids strengthen the small muscles
in their hands and fingers while also practicing to use the correct fingers.
Manipulating pegs calls for focus, precision, and the pincer grip. These toys will also build the hand muscles required for endurance when writing.
Before children put pencil to paper, they need to develop a range of pre-writing skills that form the foundation for confident and effective handwriting. These skills include fine motor control, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness.
Through play, children naturally build these abilities, and the right toys can make all the difference.
A Tap Tap games, a game of hammering a nail, and creating a design.
Similar to threading toys, holding a nail to tap tap requires a pincer grip so that
they don't tap tap their thumb!
They encourage bilateral hand use (using both hands together), which is a key skill for managing paper and pencil simultaneously during writing tasks.
Magnet books help children improve visual
perception, pattern matching, and hand control, all crucial for letter recognition and writing readiness.
Moving and positioning magnetic pieces
strengthens finger grip while encouraging problem-solving.
Maze toys are excellent for developing visual tracking, hand-eye coordination, and directional awareness, all of these are skills we use to guide a pencil from
left to right across a page. As children navigate paths and curves, they’re
mimicking the flow of writing lines and strokes. Using the stylus is a
precursor to using a pencil.
With a stylus to guide magnetic balls through tracks, these boards are a brilliant screen-free way to strengthen control, concentration, and patience — laying the groundwork for neat handwriting.
By choosing toys that nurture pre-writing skills through playful engagement, you’re setting your child up for a positive start to their writing journey.
At Lucas loves cars you’ll find a thoughtfully curated range of toys that encourage these important early developmental milestones.