Prewriting Cards & Preschool Beach Activities

As the sun-kissed days of summer approach, many parents and preschool teachers are on the lookout for preschool beach activities, and we have just the thing. These beach themed prewriting cards are making waves in writing skill development. See how we use these beach theme prewriting tracing cards to boost fine motor skills and pencil control.

Introducing a unique tool for teaching writing skills to preschoolers: beach-themed prewriting cards.

These cards offer a creative solution, incorporating sandy beaches into tracing practice and fine motor skill development. They are a really fun way of introducing preschoolers to the basics of writing because they can be used for more than just tracing! We’ve blended lots of different fine motor approaches to really get the most out of these cards, hitting different emergent writing skills.

Plus, they can easily be added to your other beach preschool theme activities, and we’ll give you all the ideas on how to do that.

Read this: 20+ Summer Printables for Preschoolers

Why Use Beach Prewriting Cards

There are loads of reasons why these beach prewriting cards are must-have for your preschool classroom or home learning environment. Here are some of them:

• Encourages fine motor skill development:
  • Through activities like tracing, rainbow writing, and manipulative play, beach prewriting cards help strengthen the muscles needed for writing.
  • Check out this list of hand strengthening exercises.
• Enhances hand-eye coordination:
  • By tracing shapes and patterns on the cards, preschoolers improve their hand-eye coordination, a crucial skill for writing.
• Supports emergent writing development:
  • Beach prewriting cards provide a scaffold for children as they begin to explore writing, helping them gain confidence and fluency.

Printable Beach Activities for Preschoolers

What I love most about these prewriting cards is that you can use them in so many ways. As per the norm, I’ll share with you one way to use the printable, then list other ideas below.

What You Get

This free printable pdf comes with four full pages of prewriting cards, totaling twelve individual cards for prewriting practice. Each cards features a unique, hand-drawn piece of clipart that fits perfectly into your beach preschool activities.

Materials

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, I may earn a small sum if you click through and make a purchase.

• free beach theme prewriting cards
• dry erase pocket
• dry erase markers
• small beach themed manipulatives (ideas below, following the activity)

The Set Up

Print the prewriting cards in color on heavy cardstock, then cut them apart. I have a basic Epson Workforce printer, which does the job well. You can either laminate the cards or use dry erase pockets, and then place the cards and a marker on a tray, then invite your preschooler to practice drawing lines with you.

How to Use Prewriting Cards with Your Beach Preschool Activities

Using these prewriting cards as a tracing exercise is the most common way to use these cards, which is definitely the easiest and most common way to add them to your preschool writing center. Some teachers like to leave them uncut to keep them as worksheets.

Offer your preschooler many colors of dry erase markers to motivate them to trace the prewriting strokes multiple times, of if you’re printing them as worksheets, offer a variety of colored crayons for rainbow writing.

Read this: Ocean Art for Preschoolers and Toddlers

How to Work on Pencil Grasp

Your preschooler may not use a mature pencil grasp when using a dry erase marker, and that is ok. When I teach writing to my preschoolers, I allow them to hold the pencil any way they choose. Often they will begin with what is most comfortable for them and then naturally progress and transition to a mature quadrupod or tripod pencil grasp.

If I have a preschooler who is just about at a mature pencil grasp, but not quite, I will offer pencil grips like these claw grips. I like these pencil grips better than others because they really help preschooler understand where to place their fingers on the pencil for the most control.

When teaching writing I emphasize that writing starts on the left side of our papers and goes to the right. That’s why my prewriting cards always have the pictures on the left side of the card. I tell my preschoolers to “start at the picture and draw on the lines.”

Preschool Beach Activities Using These Tracing Cards

Tracing the lines is one route, but what if you have a preschooler who isn’t interested or isn’t ready for tracing? Try of of these fun ways to practice prewriting skills while using the same printable.

1. In keeping with the beach theme, work that tripod grasp by offering tiny seashells to place along the lines. These are our favorite mini seashells. But have you ever seen these teeny tiny starfish!?!
2. If you don’t have seashells, then use any math manipulative. These fish counters are a good option for toddlers and young preschoolers.
   • We used transparent math counters because my kids threw all our mini seashells in the sandbox!
3. Or use these cards in a sand tray.

Beach Theme Preschool Activities

No beach preschool theme is complete with just a set of prewriting cards! Put these in your preschool writing center and then check out these other beach activities for preschoolers.

• Seashell Playdough Invitation to Play
• Lowercase Letter Crab Match
• Sand & Seashell Name Recognition Sensory Bin
• Roll a Beach Ball Playdough Mat
• Surfboard Craft
• Ocean Discovery Bottle

Beach Lesson Plans for Preschoolers

These prewriting cards are a great add-on to your beach lesson plans, but you should also try some of these other lesson plans sets that will work well.

• Beach Preschool Lesson Plans
• Pirates Preschool Lesson Plans
• Ocean Preschool Lesson Plans
• Nature Preschool Lesson Plans
• Water Preschool Lesson Plans

Grab your Beach Themed Prewriting Cards Here

Want these free beach themed printables prewriting cards? Fill out the form below and we’ll send them right to your inbox!

Shop our Summer Math Activities

Add a splash of learning to summer with our hands-on summer math activities!

Get our Summer Alphabet Activities Printables

Support literacy growth all summer long with our printable activities—and get those kiddos ready for kindergarten!

Read this: Prewriting Practice for Valentine’s Day

Beach activities pair well with ocean preschool activities, like our ocean preschool centers.