Day 29: A Reason For Handwriting

When Coqui was in Kindergarten and First Grade, I did not use any formal curriculum - I put my own stuff together. But I didn't know any better. My homeschool network has expanded quite a bit since and so has my repertoire of curriculum. When Peanut started to learn her letters, we used A Reason For Handwriting, a wonderful program for little ones.

The very first book was just awesome. She learned a letter a day, and with each letter came an animal that started with that particular letter. So we learned about that animal (science!) and then she had to color it, and then add something creative to that picture. She loved it!
That creative part was so down her ally. The second book is drier so far and she is not enjoying it as much, but she only has a few more days of simply writing her letters before we dive into learning letters and words with Scripture. Now that is the part I am excited about. Not that we don't learn Scripture already with our weekly program, but I think the more Scripture the kids are exposed to, the more will stick eventually.

We like that the lessons are short and to the point, we never spend more than fifteen minutes a day in this book. At this age, short is still better than overload. I totally love the way they explain the letter formation: with a tree house. It's ingenious - a tree house is visual and kids can totally relate to the parts of a tree house. I shared this with a friend and she was intrigued and adopted this. Also this book shows how every stroke of the letter is formed with arrows and numbers, so the child learns (or now is reminded) how to write it correctly. Now why is this important you ask, because correct writing of the printed letter will make it easier to transition into cursive writing. And yes, I totally agree with teaching cursive writing, but we will get there in a different post.