First go to Pinterest & search for "free do a dot activities" (you could also include letters, numbers, or some holiday/season of interest). Once you print the dot pages off, you could laminate them or put them in a page protector. For these I always put them in page protectors because I know that at some point we are actually going to use them with our dot markers (which is what they are for anyways, right?). Once the dot pages are in the page protector, there are a variety of ways that we use these in our school day using a toothbrush & a dry erase marker. Folks, I promise it really is as easy as it sounds.
For Ellis, who just turned 2, I will draw shapes in the dots using a dry erase marker. She will have the toothbrush and I will ask her to erase all of the circles, then hearts, then diamonds, etc. I will also fill in the circles with numbers, & ask her to erase a particular number. Or, I will just put a bunch of different color dots, and ask her to erase all of a particular color, followed by the next, until it is all blank again.
For Dutch, who is 3 and working on letters & phonetics, I will write a bunch of letters in the dots. When he first started this task I would ask him to erase all of the D's with the toothbrush. Now, to make the task more challenging, I will write a bunch of letters in various colors and will ask, "Dutch, using the toothbrush, will you erase all of the green letter D's?" Sometimes I will even specify, "Can you find and erase all of the uppercase R's?"
Now that he has mastered letter recognition, I will say the sound a letter makes and ask him to erase that letter (e.g. "Dutch, erase all of the letters that make the duh duh duh sound").
This is such an easy way to take one activity sheet and make it a fun way to practice & test various content areas, and fine motor skills with minimal effort.
Easy, right???
What unique ways are you working with your preschooler?
