Summer Learning

School is out for the Summer, or at least in our neck of the woods. My youngest child will be start 4th grade in the fall, and wants to learn to write in cursive before the new school year begins. After doing some research this is what i have found to get my daughter started. Pinterest was a great starting point. Here i found a child's guide to pre-writing cursive exercises.free printable . Next I found a list on which order is best to begin teaching each letter.

              lower case letter order: c,a,d,g,q, i,t,p,u,w,j, e,l,f,h k,r,s b,o,v m,n,y,x,z

              Upper case letter order: A,C,O,U,V,W,X,Y,Z,P,R,B,H,K,N,M,I,J,E,L,J,Q

Then my next step was worksheet. Now I went looking for the quickest and easiest so that I would not spend too much time prepping for her and lose her interest. At DollarTree you can find in the school supply section an "I Can Write"book with worksheets in it. The one I got was Cursive for grades 2-3. in it you have double sided worksheets with the alphabet and numbers as well as The full alphabet at the end.

Along with this workbook I bought dry erase markers, the thin ones. Now here is the part that maybe a little pricey but worth the extra step. Using my laminator and Pen+Gear laminating pouches in letter size I have laminated each of the worksheets, both downloaded and from the workbook. This will save paper and tears in the long run. If you do not have a laminator you can always use the self seal laminating sheets that do not require a machine. You can skip this part if you would like, but this step makes them reusable and more then one child can use them.

I will update on her progress using this method. If however she decides she does not want to continue I just use them when i substitute, to keep kids that are fast finishers busy.