Mat Man is a fun character created as a multisensory teaching tool by HWT to help young children develop essential readiness skills in the areas of prewriting development, body awareness, social/emotional, and communication skills.
• Prewriting/Writing – by learning prewriting strokes, grasp on small tools, establishing hand dominance, emerging handwriting skills, perceptual skills with building and drawing, and building foundational skills in letter formation.
• Sensory/Motor – by developing body awareness in body part identification, orientation, and function, motor skills in manipulating and tactile exploration of materials, large muscle movements, and using two sides of the body to perform movements with songs.
• Communication/Language – by using positional terms appropriately, parts of speech, answering “WH” questions, using adjectives (descriptors), verbs, and adverbs when describing Mat Man and other variations, vocabulary, and overall language concepts.
• Social/Emotional – by learning skills in listening, turn-taking, cooperation, interaction with peers and adults, group work behavior, empathy, sharing materials, and attention to a task.
Last month, we introduced the children to Mat Witch 🎃 We had a great time building Mat Witch using the wooden pieces and then drawing Mat Witch.
As we move through the year, we will continue to work on crayon and pencil grip, letter and number recognition, and capital/lowercase and number formation.
We always use the language Big and Little Lines and Big and Little Curves when writing with the children. Once children realize that all uppercase letters are made from just two shapes (two shapes they already know how to make), their confidence grows — “You can write your name because you can draw a line and a curve, and that’s all it takes.” Try using this language when writing with your child.
