Leave-Behind: Beginner Tracing Tray

The Montessori classroom uses tracing work for fine motor control in preparation for handwriting.  They have what they call "metal insets" like these:

There are a series of activities where the child either traces around the shape or traces inside the frame.

I seriously think this is ingenious.  In Ladybug Girl's former traditional-skewed toddler school (why I switched here), these were the kind of beginning writing exercises she would do:

Dotted-line tracing could be fine if fine motor control isn't a challenge for my little lefty.
Otherwise,  it's not very effective is it?

Adding tracing work at home seemed like a good idea, but how to create leave-behind activities that would be fun and intuitive for Ladybug Girl to do on her "own" while I was at work?  The last thing I wanted was to create negative pressure on her already tricky learning style since she would already shy away from writing.  

As an experiment, I left this tray setup on her play shelf:

I hoped she would have more coloring fun with it, since I left out all the pencils : but hey she still did it!
The stencil is the cover of a pattern block set from Fundamentals toy store.

I pushed my luck by leaving behind this example for a couple of days.  No stripes.
Better luck next time.

Next: in one of my early garage sales, I let go of those interlocking alphabet rubber mats that were given as a baby present.  I kept one pop-out letter though: the first letter of her name.  We've done some other fun things with it, but here's how we used it for fun tracing practice:

Day 1: Trace with a pencil (I went over it with a black pen afterwards but maybe she could have done this)
Day 2: Leave out colored pencils for art and fine motor practice.  She painted antennae to match the letter.

Her yaya encouraged her to color a little each day, until she finally finished and we could hang it up in her art gallery space:

These pencils are watercolor pencils, so next we'll brush some water on top to turn it into a watercolor painting.
For now I love seeing those pencil scratches she worked on.

Some weeks ago, I found what could be a DIY-metal inset in the form of a baby puzzle.   This is going to debut on her shelf as soon as I think of something fun.

Wish I found this sooner when Ladybug Girl was still a baby.  Would've been a nice lifespan for a toy.
Puzzle from Mothercare, Php500+

Update: here's the tray.  I kept it simple, and the next day she was so excited to show me her work.

We have origami paper handy (from National Bookstore or Muji) and she intuitively matched the colors.

  As for the tracing worksheets, they'll just have to wait till we're good and ready. 

Soon!