An open teal The Play Way box with the Getting Ready to Write Play Kit contents arranged above it: an orange scooter board, a Sky Grass Dirt writing pad, a Letter Formation guide, a printed outcome tracker, a box of ultra light modelling clay with colour pots and small accessories, and the Handwriting Foundations guide.

A boy at a table pressing the lid off a pot of green modelling clay, with five more colour pots, a bag of small clay accessories and the modelling clay box on the table.

Overhead, a child flattens a sheet of pink modelling clay with both hands and presses a pair of black sunglasses onto it, with an open pot of pink clay and a blue clay tool nearby.

A boy lies tummy down on a blue scooter board on a wooden floor, reaching forward with both hands to push along.

Two boys lie tummy down on a wooden floor with arms and legs lifted off the ground, copying an adult in front of them.

Overhead, a child pinches the leg of a purple modelling clay figure into shape, with a printed activity card showing a red bug beside it.

An adult and a boy sit side by side at a table, both leaning in towards a laptop screen.

A child's hand copies the words go to the park in pencil onto the pastel Sky Grass Dirt pad, underneath a neatly written model line.

Three boys jump barefoot in a lounge room, mid-air, with a pale green sofa and a large plant behind them.

A boy grins at the camera while riding a blue scooter board down a plywood ramp, hands flat on the floor.

Getting Ready to Write Play Kit

Name: Getting Ready to Write Play Kit
Brand: The Play Way
SKU: HANDWRITING-04
Price: 79.0 AUD
Availability: InStock

The Play Way

$79.00

$79.00 ~~$0.00~~

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Support the core, shoulder and hand strength that handwriting requires, with six tools that work from the middle of the body out to the fingertips. They need a foundation of strength before we focus on their writing technique.

This play kit was curated by our therapy team for the child whose writing is ‘too light’ or ‘too heavy handed’, who shakes or cramps up when writing, or who needs to switch their hand, grip or position often due to fatigue. This play kit builds strength in four stages: core strength, then upper body, then hand strength, then the letters. It is the first of our three handwriting play kits. Choose between them by what is actually challenging your child rather than by how old they are, and start here to build a strong foundation for writing.

The Getting Ready to Write Play Kit, previously named the Getting Ready to Write Program, is a children's pre-writing and handwriting readiness kit put together by paediatric occupational therapists in Australia, for children building the core strength, upper body strength and hand strength that handwriting depends on.

It includes six tools: a scooter board, ultra light modelling clay with tools and small accessories, a Sky Grass Dirt writing pad, a letter formation guide, an improvement tracker, and a parent guide. The four stages cover core strength, upper body strength, hand strength, then fine motor skills and early letter formation.

Every kit also comes with supporting video in The Play Way Hub, included, covering the balance and body awareness senses that sit underneath handwriting difficulty, scooter board activities, tennis ball games, pencil aerobics, warm-ups for writing, modelling clay, window drawing, and how to test and track handwriting at home. Most families using this kit have a child somewhere between 4 and 9, the stretch that runs from first pre-writing shapes through the early primary years as handwriting demands build. That is a guide rather than a rule. Children build these skills at their own pace, so choose by what is getting in the way now rather than by how old they are.

It is the first of three handwriting play kits, ahead of the Creative Handwriting Play Kit and the Handwriting in Practice Play Kit. Which of the three to choose: Getting Ready to Write is for the child whose body is not ready to sit and use a pencil yet. Creative Handwriting is for the child who is learning what each letter looks like and how it is made. Handwriting in Practice is for the child who can already form the letters but writes slowly, tires quickly, or cannot read it back.

This is an updated version of the retired Handwriting Foundations Program and covers the same ground, so it is not the one to buy if your family has already worked through that.

From The Play Way, built by an OT who has worked with children for nearly 20 years. Ships Australia wide. Contains small parts and items recommended for ages 3 and up, and adult supervision is needed, including on the scooter board.

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Size guide

Getting Ready to Write Play Kit

$79.00

$79.00 ~~$0.00~~

WHAT'S INSIDE

What's in this play kit

A full kit of play-tools, curated to work together.

Scooter board

A board on wheels your child lies on, tummy down, and pushes along the floor with their hands. We love this one because most children just get on it and go, and the work happens while they are having fun. Holding that position is the core and shoulder strength behind sitting up to a table ready to write.

Ultra light modelling clay

Pots of clay with tools and small pieces to press in. Rolling a ball is a pinch, rolling a snake takes both hands doing different jobs, and poking a hole takes one finger on its own. All of it builds the muscle between the thumb and the index finger, which is what a child needs to hold a pencil steady.

Sky Grass Dirt writing pad

Paper in three bands: blue sky at the top, green grass in the middle, brown dirt at the bottom. Most letters live in the grass and sit on the solid line, tall letters reach up into the sky, and letters with tails hang down into the dirt. Your child can see where a letter is meant to sit instead of being told and having no visual guide to work to.

Letter Formation guide

Every letter of the alphabet, upper and lower case, with the order the strokes go in. Helps them establish muscle memory and have quick wins in confidence and legibility as they’re following a clear visual guide for proportion, direction and sizing of each letter.

Improvement tracker

A tracker for the fridge for your child to fill in. They count and measure the strength and accuracy they build over time. They can beat their score from last week and feel proud of their progress.

Parent Guide

A written guide for you (the adult), covering what each of the four stages is building, how to fit the twenty minutes of play-based practice into a day, and how to tell when your child is ready to move on to the next step.

Why we built it this way

The strength comes before the writing

Handwriting gets treated as a hand skill but it starts well before the hand. A child who cannot hold their core steady has no strength to pull from when they write, so this kit starts on the floor with the scooter board and they only pick up a pencil in the last stage.

They do the counting

Your child fills in the tracker themselves, measuring their progress all the way through. It is their challenge and their own record of it, and children will often stay with something longer when they can see progress and track how they are going, for themselves.

Four stages, twenty minutes a day

The stages run in order, from the scooter board on the floor to the letters on the Sky Grass Dirt pad. Consistency is the best approach here because we’re building a skill on repetition. If you can make it part of your daily routine for a few weeks they are more likely to be able to see and feel their progress quickly.

INCLUDED WITH YOUR PLAY KIT

The videos that come with it

The key tools for all four stages are in the box, so your child can start on the floor with the scooter board from the day it arrives. When you want the learning behind it, there is about an hour of video covering why handwriting is hard for some children and what is actually getting in the way. Each stage is walked through step by step on video, with the activities demonstrated and ways to make one easier or harder, and there is a video showing you how to work out where your child is starting from. We'll send your invitation to access it all when your kit ships.

WHO THIS PLAY KIT IS FOR

If writing time looks like this

They press incredibly hard, or so lightly you can barely see it.
They can’t seem to write for long before they complain of sore or tired hands.
When they do sit, they are slumped over the page, propped on one arm, or halfway under the table.

If any of that sounds like your child, this is who we built the play kit for.

Who made this

Kait is an OT. She has been working with children and families for nearly 20 years, and she has four kids of her own. She built this play kit because handwriting gets blamed on the hand. But it goes way deeper than that. If your child has a core that cannot hold the body up at a table and shoulders that tire before the page is finished, and then they’re asked to sit up and write a paragraph…there are going to be challenges. So our therapy team put the four stages to building the foundational strength needed for writing, in order, so you can build the strength needed for handwriting, from home. Your child is on the scooter board and playing with clay, and then the letters come last, once there is a foundation of strength to write with.

5,000+
Australian children have used our play kits
20 years
of Kait working with children and families

Getting Ready to Write Play Kit