As we are getting back into school and our kids are working on spelling, writing, and penmanship, I wanted to give a few options to help from buying to making your own.
My son is in 3rd grade and while he had a lot of spelling work in 1st grade, 2nd grade was all about just letting them write. Caden tends to write his name with a capital “C” a large “a” and then writes his “d” almost the same size. This bothers me. I began thinking of different ways to help him.
Option 1: I bought a board this spring on Etsy that Montessori’s use. It’s a wooden board with letters that your child uses a writing tool to feel the mechanics of the letters by giving them a groove to follow. I think this helped a lot the more we used it. I ordered the board with lowercase alphabet on one side and his full name on the other side. The craftsmanship is wonderful and I think this is a great learning tool. Here is the shop I bought from:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/684879592/uppercase-and-lowercase-alphabet-tracing?ref=yr_purchases
Option 2: I found a neat tracing book on Amazon we have been using every night to work on spelling. The only thing is the words are more basic sight words. But I like that it has arrows to show how to write the letters then lets them do it on their own.
Option 3: Make your own. I printed spelling words for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade and made a list of words that I felt he would use most in writing. I went into Word and added the words with a font that I felt was like his writing board (Century Gothic) then went to the shadow option and found one that would allow him to write between. I bought a laminator and some laminating sheets and laminated the words so we could use a dry erase marker. I was thinking I could use my paper cutter and put the words on a binder ring but I like the option of a nice big sheet too. Now he can quickly reference them when writing and we can work on them for penmanship.
I will include a link for my printable PDF here if you’d like: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I5SsriRbe0eVPluMBS5oNWDMLF_VhRmN/view?usp=sharing
