Many Montessori classrooms have a salt or sand tray for pre-writing work. We have a Corn Meal Tray. I love the feel of the corn meal and it makes for a wonderful tracing tool. Pretty simple and powerful tool. Inexpensive too. A Tray. Corn Meal.
Keys to this work:
- Place a card with a letter, number, line or word near the child, preferably in front perhaps leaning against a wall vertically placed, or simply next to the child. This card will guide the child’s tracing and writing.
- Use a tray with sides high enough to minimize the mess and isolate the work. We use the box from Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold
. You can also purchase a tray specific for this purpose like this writing tray from Montessori Services, or these less expensive writing trays from Montessori-n-Such (Montessori Sand Writing & Drawing Tray & Lid
and Sand Writing Tray with Tracing Cards & Sand
are great!).
Additional Resources
I really enjoyed these posts on pre-writing a la Montessori:
- The Imagination Tree’s Moon Dust Sensory Writing Tray
- Raise Awesome Kid’s Sand Tracing Tray Alternative
- Peaceful Parenting’s Eight Months of Montessori Inspired Literacy Work
These Montessori books are great pre-writing tools, relatively inexpensive, too. I highly recommend them.
Thanks for visiting today! I hope that we inspired you!
Marnie
Marnie Craycroft
Founder, Publisher, Writer & Editor at Carrots Are Orange, Inc.
Marnie began Carrots Are Orange in 2010 after the birth of her first son. Carrots Are Orange is a Montessori inspired homeschooling blog for parents and educators. She hails from Maine, a wonderfully down to earth place to grow up. Marnie moved to the west coast in 1999, currently living in Seattle with her husband and two young boys. She is pursuing Montessori certification.
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We do this, too. It’s fun for the kids, and so easy to set up!
maryanne recently posted…Curious George Learning + Stride Rite Shoes #Giveaway!
I am so happy to hear that your family also uses this type of tool!
The pictures are using corn meal, not corn starch, right? Corn meal is a great idea, corn starch I don’t think would work as well… I have a giant bag of corn grits in the cupboard that I bet would work great! We’ve tried salt on the tray from my toaster oven, but I think the sides weren’t high enough (giant mess!)… I think the grits in a cake pan might work better, thanks for the inspiration!
Yup. Wow. I clearly have some mild obsession with corn starch. We also worked with corn starch this past week. My brain wires crossed…Thank you for pointing it out!
~ Marnie