22/03/2026
“But how will they learn to write if they play outside all day?”
Our pre-schoolers enjoyed using the hammer, nails and elastic bands today in our tool area. As well as the huge social and emotional benefits of undertaking tool work with “real” tools (self esteem; confidence; safety awareness; building trust with adults and in oneself), this task contained huge benefits for the development of pre writing skills.
These included:
🔨 Hand & finger strengthening - using the appropriate force and dexterity to manipulate the nails, hammer and wood to achieve the desired result. Stretching the elastic bands requires stretching rather than squeezing, developing strength in the opposite direction.
🔨 Hand eye coordination - focussing on hitting the nail instead of your fingers!
🔨 Bilateral integration - using both hands together doing different things to achieve a task (holding the wood or nail with one hand, whilst controlling the hammer with the other; holding the block in place with one hand, whilst stretching the bands over the nails with the other).
🔨 Upper body strength - these were chunky nails, and strong strikes were required to drive them into the wood.
🔨 Object manipulation - using the hammer in a controlled manner - no wild swings here!
🔨 Hand dominance - establishing which is our “hammer hand” (sometimes through swapping hands part way through if the child or adult notices that things look awkward or weak).
🔨 Hand division - using index and middle fingers & thumb to hold the nail in place, while the other fingers are tucked into the palm to stabilise the hand. (We do this without even thinking about it as adults… but we learned it once upon a time!)
So whilst it may not look like “early literacy” as we know it, the skills practised in the tool area today are all vital in the development of pencil grip and writing readiness.
