Pre-Writing Lines Activity

Working on the underlying pre-writing skills of handwriting is SO important in handwriting. This pre-writing lines activity is a fun Easter occupational therapy activity, but it’s also a powerful tool for building the foundation for handwriting. This is one of our favorite Wikki Stix activities to support pre-writing development.

You know we like to share handwriting activities around here, right? This Easter egg pre-writing activity is a fun way for young children to work on pre-writing skills in order to build a base for letter formation and pencil control. While we made this activity an Easter egg-ish shape, you could do this activity any time of year and use any shape to work on pencil control within a confined space.  

Related: Try this pre-writing lines fine motor activity to incorporate heavy work feedback in developing prewriting lines.

Preschoolers and Toddlers will love this early handwriting activity!  All of these skills are needed before a child can form letters and work on line awareness in Kindergarten.  If a child is showing difficulty with forming diagonals in letters like “A” or “M”, this would be a fun way to work on building the skill for improved legibility in written work.

Pre-Writing Lines Handwriting Precursor Activity

Dry Erase Board 
Dry Erase Markers 
Wikki Stix (Amazon affiliate link)


 Using THIS Dry Erase Board worked out great for this activity, because we did the same writing activity on the reverse side, which has a chalkboard. Writing with small pieces of chalk is a fantastic fine motor and intrinsic muscle strengthening activity to work on the fine motor skills needed for endurance in drawing and coloring, as well as the tripod grasp needed for an appropriate grasp on the pencil. A chalkboard surface for drawing lines is much more resistant than a smooth dry erase surface, providing more feedback during line formation. 


 We used these Dry Erase Markers for their fine point and colorful selection, which made making these Easter eggs a creative activity, too. My preschooler loved picking out the colors to create patterns. 

 The last item we needed for this handwriting precursor activity was (Amazon affiliate link) Wikki Stix. As an Occupational Therapist, I feel like I’m always pushing the benefits of Wikki Stix. The bendable and mold-able sticks are a great fine motor and handwriting tool.  In this activity, I bent one or two wikki stix into an egg shape.  You could also make circles, squares, or any shape for your handwriting task.

Developmental Progression of Pre-Writing Strokes

• Age 2- Imitates a vertical line from top to bottom
• Age 2-Imitates a Horizontal Line
• Age 2-Imitates a Circle
• Age 3- Copies (After being shown a model) a Vertical Line from top to bottom
• Age 3 Copies a Horizontal Line from left to right
• Age 3- Imitates a Cross 
• Age 4- Copies a Cross 
• Age 4- Copies a Right and Left Diagonal Line
• Age 4- Copies a Square 
• Age 4- Copies an “X”
• Age 5- Copies a Triangle

Easter Egg Pre-Writing Strokes Activity

More Pre-writing Lines Activities

Some of my favorite Handwriting activities are multi-sensory and incorporate motor planning activities for building pre-writing lines as a foundation for handwriting:  

• DIY Dry Erase Board Handwriting Travel Kit
• Building Letters Worksheets
• Improve Handwriting with Cookie Cutters
• Hot Glue Letters & Words
• Letter Formation Resistive Surface
• Letter Formation with Push Pins in a Can
• Cotton Swab Letters
• Lego Letters

More Easter activities:

Spring Fine Motor Kit

Score Fine Motor Tools and resources and help kids build the skills they need to thrive!

Developing hand strength, dexterity, dexterity, precision skills, and eye-hand coordination skills that kids need for holding and writing with a pencil, coloring, and manipulating small objects in every day task doesn’t need to be difficult. The Spring Fine Motor Kit includes 100 pages of fine motor activities, worksheets, crafts, and more:

• Lacing cards
• Sensory bin cards
• Hole punch activities
• Pencil control worksheets
• Play dough mats
• Write the Room cards
• Modified paper
• Sticker activities
• MUCH MORE

Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

Grab your copy of the Spring Fine Motor Kit and build coordination, strength, and endurance in fun and creative activities. Click here to add this resource set to your therapy toolbox.

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.