Fine Motor Practice - Quill Mark Making Activity

We are continuing our A to Z Fine Motor Skill series with the letter Q. This letter always causes issues. In our previous alphabet series we created a Q-Tip Sensory Bin so I knew we couldn’t use that item. I finally opted to explore Quill Mark Making.

Although technically we used a craft feather rather than a quill but the mark making process was still the same.

Practicing Fine Motor Skills with Quill

For our quills we used coloured American craft feathers. These were ideal because of the long calamus or nib. Although we only needed a small amount of paint, it needed to be deep enough to dip the quill into. I therefore poured paint into a recycled meatball plastic container.

Next I needed some way to keep the quills up right when they were not in use. I took a recycled egg carton and turned it upside down. Using the quill tip I made four holes in each corner and slotted the quills inside.

I placed the paint and the four quills onto the table along with A3 paper. My son got stuck into the activity immediately. He took the purple quill and dipped it into the purple paint.

He held the quill like a pencil and started to make marks on the paper. He soon realised that the quill was different to a paint brush as the paint didn’t stay on the quill for long. He had to re-dip his quill frequently throughout the activity.

Through experimenting my son discovered that making dots with the quill was easier than attempting to write with it.

Our quill holder proved useful as not only was it a mess free way to store the feathers but the cardboard wiped away some of the excess paint.

Towards the end of the activity my son started to use the quill to write with. He produced the letter A and numbers 1 and 2 before continuing with more dots. However, the activity had developed his pincer grip without him realising.