primary/pre- school teachers where do you get your resources?

[hidinginthenightgarden]

I want to get some stuff to help my daughter. Things to help develop pen control, learn letters and numbers etc in a fun playful way.
Would appreciate ideas.
She is 3.

You don't need anything to explicitly 'teach' her at three.

Focus on practical things. Running, jumping, skipping, hopping, being able to try monkey bars and climb. This helps her gross motor skills- gross motor skills come before fine motor skills which help pencil control.

Sing songs and rhymes to her. Look at the world around her and count the objects she sees, develop her hearing and ability to compare sounds.

For pencil control
Colouring in
Puzzles
Play doh
Threading

For numbers
Sing songs
Count things you see on walks, when tidying up etc.

The best thing you can do for phonics is to learn the letter sounds yourself so you can help her later on. You could use Mr Thorne on YouTube. For you, not for her.

Thank you!

I teach infants (and have a 4 year old who will start school in 2020) and I think the most important thing is language. If a child comes into me with good language skills (receptive and expressive) I find they access the curriculum at a higher level.
Exposure to good quality language ( books, conversation etc) is essential .
I use plasticine instead of play doh it works the fingers better.
Peg boards/ tweezers are great .
Games that involve turn taking eg orchard toys games.

For pen control:
Using clothes pegs. Index and middle finger on one side, thumb on the other. How many times can you open and close in (insert number) seconds? How many pegs on the clothes line?
Using pegs to pick up pom-poms, transferring from one pot to another.

Making patterns with pegs on a peg board (you could also use the Mastermind game to make patterns on the board?)

Gross motor strength for sustaining writing posture: activities performed while lying on front, leaning on elbows like drawing on a whiteboard are great for this.

@switswoo81 beat me to it! I second the plasticine activity.
Screwing up balls of paper/newspaper also helps build strength in the hand for writing.

Great minds @applesauce1 .