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N is for Notes

Ah, handwriting. Some kids love it, and some kids just don’t. Actually, some adults are great at it, and some just aren’t. Of all the subjects, I find this one to be one of the most difficult to teach, for a variety of reasons.

Creativity does not translate into neatness

My kids love to draw, paint, scribble, cut, fold, tear, etc. Creativity has never run low in my family. There’s always markers, glitter, crayons, paper, glue, and just about any other mostly child-safe art supply available to my kids. And the only reason we might not have something is because they used it all up. We actually ran out of markers last month!

But, lots and lots of creativity means nothing when it comes to handwriting. I naively assumed that because my children like to draw and color and can stay in the lines (when they want to) that teaching handwriting would be a breeze.

I think the opposite is true. They find the structure of handwriting confining and feel the need to embellish and decorate everything on their page. Even on their math pages. 9’s turn into people, and 1’s must be decorated to the nth degree.

IMG_20160411_224349150Uneven

I just assumed that by 2nd grade keeping letter all the same size would come naturally. Apparently, that’s a learned skill. I remember struggling with this when I was a kid, well into 4th grade. For some kids, it doesn’t matter how many lines you give them, it’s just so hard to keep those letters even.

Grip

I have worked and worked with my kids on how to hold a pencil but it seems to do nothing for their handwriting. I mentioned this to my art teacher when my oldest was in 1st grade and she wasn’t at all surprised that I was still having trouble teaching this. She said that in her experience, kids are usually between 7 and 10 before they’re actually physically coordinated enough to hold a pencil correctly and write with perfect, even penmanship.

I’m so glad my teacher told me this. I was getting frustrated with my 1st grader and she was getting frustrated with me. So, I backed off. I still make her practice handwriting, but I make it easier and less time-consuming. We started cursive in 2nd grade and I used a K4 Cursive writing book for her. Long pages of writing means that I get really poor penmanship. Short pages means that she actually tries. And I’d much rather see 5 correctly formed words than 30 illegible words. She has a long way to go on her cursive, but we got a great start this year, and she’s still wanting to improve.

What’s actually interesting to me is the less I push my oldest, the better her penmanship gets. She’s entering that age where she wants to write her own notes and stories, and her penmanship just improves as she goes.

I haven’t given up on penmanship, I’m just allowing my children to learn at their own pace. Next year I have a Kindergartner and a 3rd grader and I’ve already looked at curriculum and picked out their handwriting. They’re both going to learn manuscript and cursive together. The younger child needs to learn, and the older child needs to improve. And hopefully, with some sibling competition, they will both improve faster than if either was working alone.

Plus, let’s be honest here. While I have great handwriting (manuscript, cursive, and calligraphy), I despise writing out pages of random words or sayings. So, why would I expect my children to like this?

Really, it’s just good to know that if I want my kids to have great handwriting, I need to plan to be teaching this all the way through middle school. Because perfection takes practice. Lots of practice.

 

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C is for Creativity

One thing I just love about Homeschooling is the freedom to be creative. And by creative, I don’t specifically mean art supplies.

Though, we do love art at my house. Paint, markers, glitter, scissors, paper, boxes, clay, etc. We have so many art supplies! And we go through them so quickly. I’m always requesting art supplies as birthday and holiday gifts because it’s impossible to keep up otherwise. Right now, I have poster paint and plaster of paris on my shopping list. Of course, I need thread for a sewing project so I’ll be going to the hobby store sometime this next week and the’ll get their paint and plaster of paris while I’m there.

BTW, plaster of paris is worse than glitter. The dust gets everywhere! And because it heats up right after mixing it, it’s always a project that I have to be heavily involved in. We have these princess doll molds for plaster of paris and they’ve sadly broken most of them. So sometime while they’re sleeping, I need to make some new ones and then they’ll spend the next week painting and decorating them.

Back to creativity in homeschooling… For example, history doesn’t just have to be from a book. You can go to a museum, watch a movie, or read a fun biography. We’ve even done a themed meal or other project to help the kids learn about the historical period we’re currently discussing. History is so much fun!

Science, trip to the zoo, growing your own garden (my 7yr old has be begging for years to have her own garden, this spring I’m going to let her have her own), experiments, museums, and anything fun that helps kids learn about the world around them.

Reading, I strongly believe in finding things for kids to read that they want to read. I have grade level readers, but I always have those a backups for if we don’t have anything else to read. Right now, my 2nd grader wants to read Childhood of Famous Americans: Andrew Jackson. It’s a bit above a 2nd grade reading level and she’s all into it. I’m getting reading AND history in one easy swoop! She’d rather read this than her grade level reader, so that’s what we read. It’s all about getting them reading.

English, or Language & Grammar, whichever you prefer to call it. Now that we’re to 2nd grade I combine this a lot with handwriting since it’s pretty difficult to accomplish one subject without the other. I do have a curriculum for this but I’ll take breaks for fun projects like writing thank you notes, addressing Christmas cards, writing a story, etc. It’s important to learn the rules, but you also want there to be room for some fun.

Math, no surprises here, with a girl, math is our toughest subject. Here’s the interesting part, physical math skills like telling time, measurements, temperatures, etc. are not a problem. It’s the more abstract skills like addition and subtraction problems, counting sequences, and I’m not sure how she’ll do with multiplication in a month. I encourage her to use her math through the day on things like cooking (since she loves to cook and you can’t cook without basic math), art (think of all those shapes you can measure and create),  daily calendar, etc. Maybe this is why her physical math is easy? And think of all the fun math we’ll use this spring when we plant her garden!

What are some fun things you do with your kids to help them learn?