In this activity the child practices writing on a chalkboard.
Each Monday, I pull out our Mail Monday box and each child writes a letter to a friend or family member. Why? Writing letters is an enjoyable way to practice writing skills, handwriting, sentence and paragraph formation, grammar, and build relationships! It’s basically a language arts lesson wrapped in a fun package.
I just finished a new template for Form Drawing. You can find the download HERE . Of course the specific Montessori exercises for ...
A Proverb a Day Handwriting Practice is a downloadable and printable set of handwriting pages that uses meaningful proverbs instead of arbitrary sentences.
Copywork is a long-standing practice in education. In the Charlotte Mason philosophy, copywork is a method of practicing writing skills like letter formation, vocabulary, poetry and literature. Learn about the benefits of copywork and how to implement it in your homeschool, plus my favorite copywork resources.
Enhance your child's writing skills with our engaging worksheets designed to practice writing their names. Our carefully-crafted exercises provide an enjoyable learning experience that focuses on the entity (your child) and subject (writing their names). Join us on this journey to improve your child's penmanship and boost their confidence in a fun and interactive way.
Freedom Homeschooling lists free homeschool language arts curriculum for all grades. Grammar, reading, spelling, handwriting, and more!
There are some kids out there who absolutely HATE handwriting. Let me re-phase that. There are a ton of kids who completely despise to their core the act of working neat handwriting, pencil grasp, slowing down so people can read their words, and writing on the lines. A ton. I’ve worked with many (many!) kids ... Read more
Free Psalm 91 Copywork Printables for your homeschool family. You can print off cursive and print handwriting sheets.
I teach my students each year about the "Handwriting House". All of the letters have a special place in the house. I teach them this little poem: Then, I print the cards on cardstock and send them home as bookmarks! They even like to teach their parents a thing or two about handwriting. Perhaps I should share this with my husband? No, we are not learning our ABC's in 1st grade, but we ARE learning how to properly form our letters. I am very strict with my students with handwriting starting on day 1. It helps them make it a habit. If I can't read their writing, we will both struggle all year! They end up feeling so proud about their handwriting. Of course the Handwriting Fairy helps, too. ;) You can download the poster and bookmark {here}. For more handwriting ideas you can click {here} and scroll down past this post and you'll see tons of other ideas. How do you teach handwriting?
There is so much you can learn about a student’s phonics skills just from looking at writing samples. One of the big “ah-ha” moments from my Phonics First training (Orton-Gillingham based program) was when the trainer said that a student has not fully mastered a phonics rule until you see him/her use it in writing. […]
9 fun visual motor warmups on one page to perform before Handwriting activities. ...
Teaching a kid to read can be intimidating! Don't go it alone. Get the best reading curriculum for homeschoolers to hold your hand and make it enjoyable.
I think all parents will agree… Developing handwriting skill is one of the fundamental building block for a child’s future success. Let’s remember how we learned printing. As a …
K-1 LABELING UNIT How do I teach my kindergarten and first grade students to write? I think every teacher has wondered this at some point. It can seem overwhelming... especially when getting started. I am so excited to share with you how I tackle writing and writer’s workshop! I will sh
Want to teach your kids the parts of a rose? Check out this rose mini unit for kids. Great for homeschool or classroom use.
The cursive handwriting pages are NO PREP and fun. All you need is a die and pencil and you’re ready to trace and race! These free trace and race pages are a sample from my Lowercase Cursive Handwriting Pack. You may also like our free cursive handwriting worksheets. *This post contains affiliate links. Fun Cursive Handwriting ... Read More about Cursive Handwriting Pages for Lowercase
FREE CURSIVE HANDWRITING WORKSHEETS (instant download)
Use these free handwriting worksheet generators to create traditional, Zaner-Bloser, or D'nealian style print and cursive practice pages for kids.
Here's how to decide if the Handwriting without Tears preschool program is right for your child. The most important thing to keep in mind is...
If your child's writing is horrendous and you wage the "bad handwriting" war, consider some of these techie (and no-techi) resources.
There are a million things that we have to fit into our school day—and handwriting can feel like just one more thing that we don’t have time for! BUT it’s super important. Even in our digital age, students need to learn to form letters correctly! In this post, I’ll share 5 activities that I use to help my students improve their handwriting. Many of these can be done in the context of writing instruction (perfect for when your students aren’t applying their handwriting skills to their actual writing). I’m suggesting these activities in addition to your normal handwriting instruction. These activities don’t replace explicit instruction that shows students how to form letters. I recommend dedicating time daily or weekly for teaching handwriting, having students practice on paper and with sensory materials (i.e., shaving cream), etc. Activity #1: Highlight the lines on students’ writing paper. This is more of a strategy than an activity—but it can be super helpful! To help students who struggle to write within the lines, you can highlight the lines on their writing paper (for handwriting instruction AND any other writing activities they do). If handwriting is a big challenge for a student, you might want to begin with paper with two lines, and then move to paper with three lines. Baby steps! I definitely can’t take credit for this strategy. 🙂 I learned it from a wonderful occupational therapist who worked with one of my students. I wish I could give her a shout-out, but it’s been about 10 years now and I can’t recall her name! Activity #2: Have students sort letters by their attributes. Students need a “language” to help them think and talk about letter formation. It helps to use words like loop, dot, tail, stick, etc. I really don’t think it matters WHAT terms you use, as long as you are consistent with those terms. (If you have a handwriting curriculum that students use at multiple grade levels, definitely stick to the curriculum’s terminology for consistency.) To help students learn how letters are the same and different, you can have them sort letters by their attributes. Students might sort magnetic letters into groups of letters that have curves, straight lines, or both. I also like to have students sort letters by the lines they touch. For example, students might group letters by those that have tails below the bottom line, those that touch the top and bottom line, and those that touch the middle and bottom lines. Having the highlighted letter cards is especially helpful to getting students to focus on these lines! Activity #3: Play a “Handwriting Scavenger Hunt” game. This game is helpful when you want students to fix up their handwriting in the context of their writing! There are lots of different ways you can play the game. You give clues about a letter (or multiple letters), have students find it in their writing, and then have them fix up the letter if they see that it is formed incorrectly. The clues can range from simple to more complex. Here are some example clues: Find a lowercase a. Find a capital letter. Find a capital letter that is a vowel. Find a letter that has a tail below the line. Find a letter that touches the middle and bottom lines. Find the letter at the end of the word the. You might have noticed that many of these clues have more than one correct answer—this is helpful because you don’t always know which letters students have included in their writing. It helps to have visuals of the letters to discuss them with students (once the mystery letter(s) are revealed). Also, make sure to have students study the letter(s) carefully and fix them in their writing, if necessary! Activity #4: Play a “Mystery Letter Guessing Game.” This activity is somewhat similar to #3, but it can be done out of the context of writing instruction. Instead of having students search through their writing, simply place letter cards on the table (4-6 letters at a time). Choose one letter and give clues to help students guess it. They have to wait for 2 clues before making a guess. If you put the below letters on the table and choose the letter c, you might give the following clues: “This letter touches the bottom and middle lines.” “This letter has only curves, no straight lines.” You can swap out the letter cards and play multiple rounds of this! If you do want to incorporate students’ writing, after students have guessed the mystery letter, they can search for examples in their own writing and fix any letter formation mistakes. Activity #5: Play “Handwriting Inspector.” In this partner activity, students work with a partner to fix up their handwriting. After you provide instruction about how to (politely) give feedback, students swap papers. They look for examples of excellent handwriting, as well as areas for improvement. Students can also do this independently, in a “Fabulous and Fix It” activity where they work on improving their own handwriting. Conclusions The materials shown in this post all come from my Kindergarten, first grade, or second grade small group writing bundles. And handwriting is actually just one small part of these resources—they address all kinds of writing issues, including capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and content! You can read more about these materials by clicking on the images below. If you have other favorite handwriting activities that you love, feel free to share below. Happy teaching!!
Language arts curriculum review of materials that I use with my rising third grader and kindergartner to reinforce phonics, handwriting, and grammar.
Practice your childs handwriting with this fun sentences that use all 26 letters in the alphabet. These pangram sentences are useful for quick practice with handwriting as your child will get to p…
This is an idea that comes from one of my interns this year, Tracy. She saw it in another classroom. I could not find anything about it online so I just had to make my own poster. When you begin teaching handwriting on the “lines” this is such a helpful visual for the children. Chicken […]
Freedom Homeschooling lists free high-quality homeschool handwriting curriculum and worksheets for all grades.
Build-A-Letter Lower Case Letter Templates. Download from Tired Need Sleep. Don't forget to grab the Upper Case Templates too .
Get the muscles and fingers ready for writing with these handwriting warm up activities for kids.
Does your kiddo struggle with having neat handwriting? Use this easy 8 step guide to start improving their writing today!
