Letter A Dot Painting Hands-On Activity

Introduce the letter A to your child with this hands-on activity. Creating a letter a dot painting will build letter recognition, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination. More advanced students can build sight word dot paintings instead. This project is the perfect follow-on for our lowercase letter a craft.

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Encourage your child to match the dots to the lines. This will reinforce the shape of the letters and build hand-eye coordination. If you let your child place dots wherever they want, this project will not be as effective. However, as long as they are trying and doing their best, it is good enough. Should your child need help lining up the q-tip at first, you can gently hold his hand and guide it for the first few times.

While this letter a dot painting seems like a simple project, it is not necessarily easy for little hands to hold those q-tips and aim for the lines. Patience and practice is the key to successful hands-on activities. Any time a project is too frustrating for your child or starts causing melt-downs, take a break. You can always come back to the activity at a later time.

Hands-On Activities Take Time and Practice

The more time you spend with hands-on activities, the more your child will understand what is expected and enjoy the experience. Take your time, and exercise lots of patience if this is the first hands-on project your child has experienced. The value of this project is in the process, not in the finished product, so don’t place too much emphasis on how it looks or help too much. Praise your child for working hard and listening well, and not how the project looks.

Watch Letter A Circle Time Here!

Supplies for Letter A Dot Painting

To help your letter a dot painting experience go more smoothly, you should get everything out and set up ahead of time if you can. If you have lots of littles underfoot I know this can be difficult. Perhaps you can take the opportunity to set up the project during nap time or quiet time. This is a list of the items you will need to complete the letter a dot painting.

several colors of washable paints
white paper
q-tips
ink pen or pencil.

Instructions for Letter A Dot Painting

The key to successful project time is encouragement, encouragement, encouragement. Remind your child to take their time and try to get the paint dots on the lines. Use positive words to describe what your child is doing. “Good job lining up that red dot. You are working so hard to do this right!” If your child already knows his letters, remember you can use a sight word instead of the letter.

As you work, talk about the shape of the letter A and the differences between the uppercase and lowercase letters. Together, come up with a list of items that have the short vowel sound of a and then the long vowel sound of a. Make it a competition, taking turns coming up with items that have the sound. For more advanced kiddos, have her try forming complete sentences from several A words. “Alice the anteater eats ants all day and never apples.” or “Apple pie is Amy’s favorite dessert.” Give a couple of examples and then encourage your child to try on his own.

Write your letter or sight word on the paper (younger learners choose a letter, older learners choose a sight word)
Put a little paint in several colors on a paper plate. Place q-tips next to the paint.
Have your child use the Q tips to dot paint on the letter or word.

Extension Activities for the Letter A Dot Painting

If you and your child are enjoying this activity, you can keep going! Here are some extension activities for the letter a dot painting. 1) Look at some examples of Pointillism online, and talk about this form of art. 2) Outline an animal or favorite object and let your child fill that in with dots. 3) Outline a human head, and have your child add eyes, nose, mouth, and then fill in with other colors. 4) If your child wants, he can freestyle pointillism art without an outline.