Writing Center for Preschool and Pre-K: Handwriting Activities for Your Classroom

Preschool Writing Center

How do you store supplies such as markers, pencils, paper, and crayons in your writing center? Setting up a writing center in your classroom can be challenging, but with a few simple tricks you can have a fully functional and organized center in no time!

Preschool Writing Center Set Up

Writing Center Set Up in Preschool

I get asked often why I store crayons and markers in the writing center by color. Each table in the classroom has a caddy to hold crayons so they’re readily available throughout the room and don’t need a separate storage space on the shelf. Inside each caddy are six cups of crayons (mixed colors) and a pencil in each cup.

The crayons and markers in the writing center are sorted by color. Having the crayons and markers sorted this way in the writing center helps when children are using the crayon caddies at their tables and can’t find a particular color. They know exactly where they can find the color they need when they’re sorted by color in the writing center.

This eliminates the constant interruptions of “I can’t find that color!” When they call out for help finding a certain color, instead I ask them, “What can you do to solve your problem?”

These plastic storage drawers pictured above can be purchased at most big box stores. I added labels to the front of each drawer, you can grab these free labels for your writing center too!

Writing Center Tools for Preschool

The Best Writing Tools

Here are some of the materials young children enjoy using in this center so you can get ideas for setting up your own writing center.

How to Set Up a Writing Center in Preschool

Writing Center Supplies and Materials

Craft Paper Punches: Young children love using craft punches to make many different shapes. They enjoy gluing these shapes to paper and drawing and writing about them.

Writing Center Sign: These center signs list what the children are learning in the writing center. You can read more about these signs HERE.

Cutting Practice: This consists of the fronts of old greeting cards. Ask your family and friends collect these for you. Students cut the pictures out and glue them to paper, then write about their pictures. The children are highly motivated to use the cards, it is one of their favorite activities at the writing center and a great way to practice scissor skills. The thickness of the cards offers more resistance; making it easier for little hands to cut.

Dry Erase Boards in the Writing Center
Clipboards: Students can use crayons or markers to write on sheets of blank paper attached to the clipboards. They can walk around the room and record their observations or copy print, this is another one of their favorite activities.

Dry Erase Boards: Children love to use markers to draw, write, and erase on these boards. You can place dry erase boards and clipboards in stacking file trays for easy storage.

Writing Center in Preschool Alphabet Stamps

Preschool Writing Center

Alphabet Ink Stamps Keep your alphabet stamps organized by storing them in ice cube trays. Write a letter in each empty space using a permanent marker and the students can match the stamps to the correct space. The students enjoy stamping their names, names of their friends, or words with the ink stamps.

Ikea Kvissle Paper Tray Classroom Hack
A variety of different paper: Students have several different types of paper to choose from. Regular white copy paper, half sheets of copy paper, and half sheets of construction paper so they can make covers for their books. You can read more about this sturdy paper organizer here.

Preschool Writing Center Set Up in the Classroom
Sandpaper Letters: Place skinned crayons with these sandpaper letters and students can use half sheets of paper to create crayon rubbings of the letters.

Center Essentials Cover 400

Pasting Pieces: These alphabet pasting pieces are always huge hit in my classroom. The students like to glue the letters to paper and spell their names and the names of their friends or even words. I also have a free printable you can use to make your very own letter pasting pieces.

Writing Center for small classrooms

Writing Center for a Small Classroom

Do you have a small classroom? It can be a real challenge to find space for this center in a small classroom. If you don’t have room for it, you don’t need to get rid of this center entirely. Check out my vertical writing center above!

Magnetic Writing Center
Creating this area is a super simple three-step process:

  • Get an oil drip pan from your local auto parts store
  • Attach the pan to the wall in your classroom with screws
  • You can find the magnetic containers at the Container Store, but they also had them at the Target Dollar Spot during Back-to-School season

That’s it, easy peasy! I also found something similar to the magnetic bins online HERE and HERE.

How to set up a writing center

Teaching Trailblazers

Having an organized writing center is awesome! But let’s face it, a writing center can’t make you a better teacher. The best place to discuss teaching best practices and get the support you need is in the Teaching Trailblazers. We have many printable lessons and on-demand video trainings to help you become the best teacher you can be! If you want to get on the waiting list for the Teaching Trailblazers, do it soon so you don’t miss the next open enrollment period!

Resources


21 thoughts on “Writing Center for Preschool and Pre-K: Handwriting Activities for Your Classroom”

  1. Joyce Buckman

    I came upon this while I was looking for writing center ideas. It’s a little different for me because I teach a 3-4 class, with many of the children just turning 4 over the course of the year. This video provides great information. One question I have is how many different things you put out at one time? For example, would you put out the greeting cards and sandpaper letters at the same time?
    Thank you.

    1. It’s entirely up to you which items and how many you have on the shelves at any time. The purpose of a writing center is to provide children with choices to make exploring the materials meaningful and fun. What you have on the shelves during the first few weeks of school will be different than what you may have out later in the year. There are a few basics that are always there, such as writing tools (crayons, pencils, markers etc.) a variety of paper, whiteboards etc.

  2. Bethany Del Bosque

    Hi I was hoping to purchase your drawer color labels. I bought one of your packs off of teacher pay teacher but they weren’t there. I also tried to sign up for you tribe page just to get the but it says there was a waiting list. Is there any way I could purchase them I’m trying to complete my centers today! Thanks

  3. I’m a new preschool teacher this year. My question is…How do you keep the students writing on the right surface with the right tool? Example: I have students that have written on the chalkboard with dry erase markers. I have had students write on the dry erase board with markers. I have had them drawing on toys with markers or pens. Etc…. We are slowly trying to teach the students. But the writing center is giving us a headache on somedays. But I know it’s necessary for young children. Thank you. I love your information and writing center!

    1. Hi Jody, Yes, I know exactly what you mean! This is what has really helped cut down on the use of the wrong marker on the wrong surface, https://www.pre-kpages.com/brilliant-teaching-hacks/ Scroll down towards the bottom of the post and look for Hack #31, “Use colorful washi tape to let your students know which markers they can use on dry erase boards.” There’s a picture just below that which shows you what I mean. This is a real game changer, I hope it works for you too 🙂

  4. I see you have 11 centers listed. Do you have all 11 running at the same time? How do you recommend managing centers? I have a class of 22 students and I typically have 8 centers which I rotate 2-3 students through.

  5. Hey there! I love your writing ideas. I was wondering what size oil drip pan you used for that particular writing center! Thanks!

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