Free Hearts Prewriting Practice Cards for Valentine’s Day

Writing skills are an important for preschoolers to develop before entering kindergarten, which means they need lots of practice in preschool. See how these free Valentine’s prewriting practice cards are just the right thing to add to your friendship preschool theme or your Valentine’s preschool theme this February.

FREE Pre-Writing Practice Cards for Valentine’s Day

Pre-writing skills are the fundamental skills children need to develop before they are able to write. 

Fundamental as in of central importance in forming a necessary base.

So when I say that pre-writing skills are fundamental skills to learning to write, then that means they shouldn’t be skipped.

Ever.

So, what do we do when our writing center or our journal practice gets a little stale?

Introducing heart themed prewriting cards!

FAQ About Teaching Writing Skills to Preschoolers

About These Prewriting Practice Cards

These were actually inspired by a reader who was kind enough to respond to one of my emails in December where I was sharing my free Christmas pre-writing cards.

Jennifer spent some time making her preschoolers come mailboxes out of microwave oatmeal boxes. She decorated the boxes and stapled several together before she wrote her student’s names on them. 

She said,

I’ve been looking for ideas for the kids to write to each other.  I figure they will practice folding construction paper for a card.  So when I saw your stuff, I knew what else I needed to provide!!  The kids can practice tracing, then put their friend’s name on the back, and their name (I’ve been teaching them to write) and put them in their friend’s mailbox!!

I loved her idea so much I asked if I could share her story and make some heart prewriting cards for Valentine’s Day. If your preschool doesn’t celebrate holidays, or if you are outside the United States and you don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, then you can use these cards as part of a shapes math unit or a friendship unit. 

But Jennifer responded with a resounding “yes” when I told her I would be making these Valentine’s Day prewriting cards. And I hope you enjoy them just as much.

Be sure to read to the end of this post for some of my ideas on how these prewriting cards can be used in different ways.

Heart Themed Pre-Writing Practice Cards

These pre-writing cards feature a range of lines to keep your preschooler interested as well as give them the extra line tracing they need.

Materials

• free Valentine’s prewriting practice cards
• dry erase pouch
• dry erase markers

The Set-up

Print the tracing cards in color on heavy cardstock.

At this point, you can cut apart the prewriting cards into strips, or you can leave them whole as one sheet. It doesn’t matter. But I like to cut them apart because I feel like our activities using them can be more versatile.

For traditional line tracing, you’ll want the prewriting strips in a dry erase pouch.

Make Any Prewriting Activity Holiday Themed

This is completely unnecessary, but extra fun. I like to add a littler extra Valentine’s flair to my preschool writing center with some heart or Valentine’s themed writing materials and manipulatives.

Why manipultaives, you ask? Read all the activities below.

How to Use the Valentine’s Pre-Writing Cards

There are several ways to use these prewriting cards to teach writing to your preschoolers. Your preschooler’s skill level will determine which writing activities you use below.

Use a Dry Erase Marker

The first way to use these prewriting worksheets or prewriting tracing cards is to use them in a dry erase sleeve and have your preschoolers practice tracing the lines in dry erase marker.

Then Erase the Marker With Your Finger

One of my favorite activities to support letter formation and prewriting lines is to have my preschoolers write first in the dry erase marker, and then have them use their finger to erase the marker. This way they get twice the practice!

If Tracing is Too Much, Try This

If you really want to get the most “bang for your buck” with my free prewriting worksheets, then before you even start tracing, have your preschooler use a button and push the button along the lines. This helps your preschooler develop a sense of feel for common line patterns that are found in writing letters.

If you use a pom pom, then they get even more fine motor practice because pinching the pom pom forces children to use their pincer grasp, which is fundamental to developing a mature pencil grasp.

And Use Stickers, too!

Peeling stickers is a favorite of any child, but it’s also excellent fine motor work! Grab some small dot stickers and have your preschooler add the stickers to the lines. The fine motor work in this activity is different than the above, but still helpful to preschoolers.

In fact, peeling and placing stickers is one of the most popular fine motor activities I used in our fine motor journals.

Try Adding Buttons or Small Manipulatives

Anytime you ask a preschooler to line up small items or manipulatives, you are helping them develop their fine motor skills, which are a precursor to successful prewriting. Invite your preschooler to use small buttons to practice prewriting by lining them up along the lines.

My preschool son loved this activity because of the colorful buttons. It was a challenge to line up the buttons, but a good challenge. *NOTE: Do not use a laminated sheet or a dry erase sleeve. It makes the surface too slick and frustrates preschoolers because the buttons won’t stay put.

Don’t Forget Rainbow Writing

Rainbow writing is where children practice tracing the same line multiple times by tracing the line in several different colors before moving on. This is a classic prewriting activity for preschoolers and it naturally adds extra practice while using the same writing printable.

One More Note About Teaching Prewriting Skills

The tracing lines on these cards are varied so that they mimic real curves and shapes of letters. There are straight lines that are jagged and curved lines that are like waves. All these lines mimic letter and number shapes.

When my preschooler first begin using prewriting cards like these, I stress to them the importance of starting at the left (where the heart is) and tracing to the right. This is the natural progression in forming letters, not to mention how we actually write in English. From left to right.

Be sure to read below for five more ways to use this printable!

More Ways to Use This Printable

There are so many ways to use this freebie! Let me share some ideas with you.

1. Have your preschoolers trace the lines and share them with their friends like Jennifer suggested.
2. Use these prewriting cards with a salt tray.
3. Add small manipulatives like buttons or floral pebbles to form the lines rather than tracing. Placing small manipulatives on the lines really makes the preschoolers use their pincer grasp.
4. You can also use the for push tracing. Instead of tracing with a marker, trace each line with a button.
5. Invite your preschooler to roll fine snakes and form the lines with playdough.

How else would you use these Valentine’s prewriting cards?

Interested in Learning More?

Your free prewriting practice cards are below, but I wanted to also share with you some of the best books I have about how to teach preschoolers to write. This book list has helped me become better at teaching preschool writing.

Grab Your Prewriting Cards Below!

But be sure to scroll down to find more activities for preschoolers!

There’s some awesome FREE Valentine’s printables down there, too, so be sure to grab them all!

More FREE Prewriting Practice Cards