If your kids love dry erase markers but you don’t have a whiteboard, you’ll love these ideas! We’ve come up with 5 fun ways to use dry erase markers for play and learning, and not one of them requires a whiteboard.
You know how much we love using dry erase markers for various learning activities here in my daycare, right? Well, the wonderful folks at EXPO recently sent us a terrific collection of art supplies, and among them was their newest line of Dry Erase Markers with Ink Indicator (<–That’s my affiliate link to Amazon.com. Canadians can order from Staples here).
They’re pretty awesome!
What’s an ink indicator, you ask?
Check it out!
Each marker has a clear barrel at one end, so you can see exactly how much ink is left in the marker.
Woohoo!
Teachers everywhere are cheering as we speak, I’m sure. No more running out of ink in the middle of a whiteboard lesson or presentation!
#teacherfail
You’re gonna love these markers!
Great teacher gift idea!
Keep EXPO ink indicator markers in mind for back-to-school and when you’re shopping for teacher gifts! They’re vibrant, low odour, and way better than the scratchy, streaky whiteboard markers that you remember your teachers using.
You don’t need a whiteboard to get creative with dry erase!
We don’t have a whiteboard here, but that’s never stopped us from using dry erase markers for crafting and learning. There are lots of surfaces that dry erase markers work on! That makes them awesome for kids art and learning activities. Kids can easily erase any mistakes they make, and do the activities time after time. Plus, we all know that half the fun of dry erase is erasing the ink. My hooligans love using them.
Alrighty! Let me show you the activities that we used our markers for the other day.
5 Fun Ways to Use Dry Erase Markers for fun and learning (without a whiteboard)
1. Sight Words with Dry Erase Markers and Plastic Plates
For the first activity, you’ll need white plastic party plates (dollar store), a black permanent marker (not pictured) and your dry erase markers.
The plastic plates serve as a mini whiteboard and for erasers, you use cotton make-up pads.
For the youngest hooligans, I wrote simple 3-letter sight words on the plate in permanent marker, leaving the middle letter blank for the preschoolers to fill in with the dry erase markers.
For the older hooligans, I wrote 3-letter words and added blanks to the beginning and end of each word so they could add letters to build longer words.
This is a fun activity for kids to do solo, but they can also do this in pairs, taking turns adding letters.
To help the youngest children, I wrote the consonants and vowels all around the rim of the plate. The kids loved filling in the blanks, wiping them clean and starting all over. To store, just stack the plates upside down, and place the markers in the top plate.
2. Self-Portraits with Mirrors and Dry Erase Markers
A mirror makes a great surface to draw or write on with dry erase markers! I got our hand-mirrors and the mirrored tiles from the dollar store.
The kids especially had fun looking into the mirrors and tracing our reflections to make self-portraits.
For a fun vertical art activity, use a large wall mirror or a mirrored closet door.
3. Travel Art Kit with Dry Erase Markers and a CD Case
Old CD and DVD cases work well as mini-whiteboards!
Replace the CD cover with a piece of white paper, tuck a make-up pad or a tissue into the case to use as an eraser, and you’ll have a portable art activity that kids can take “on the go”.
Keep your mini whiteboard and a few dry erase markers in the car or in your purse, and your kids will be entertained when you’re waiting in restaurants, the doctor’s office or the school car-pool line.
4. Eraseable Preschool Worksheets with Dry Erase Markers
Print preschool worksheets and slip them into clear, plastic page protectors. Store them in a binder, and tuck a few cotton pads into the inside flap of the binder. You can make a whole workbook full of erasable activities for a fraction of the cost of buying them. What a great way for kids to work on spelling, math and colouring activities over and over again!
And lastly, our biggest, funnest dry erase activity of them all!
5. Dry Erase Hangman on a Sliding Glass Door
The hooligans love drawing and writing on a vertical surface, and they love playing word games, so this combination of the two was a huge hit. We played game after game of “Hangman” on the sliding glass door on our back deck.
To make our writing easy to see, I taped a large piece of white paper to the inside of the sliding glass door and we played our game on the outside. For the paper, poster board or the reverse side of a piece of wrapping paper would work well.
This would be a great party game for kids, a fun family activity for a backyard BBQ, or a playful learning activity for a fun summer day at home.
Learn more about EXPO Dry Erase Markers with Ink Indicator here.
#EXPOTeacherWin
This post was sponsored by EXPO Markers. The ideas and opinions are my own.
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
