Center Books: Handwriitng/Writing

In my previous posts I've mentioned a few of my centers.  The rest of my centers are all what I call my "Center Books."  They are repetitious in nature but have plenty of hands-on varying activities to keep the kids learning and interested throughout the entire year.  I really like these books because once I teach them I never have to change them and they kids are engaged and learning every time they work in them.  

My center books are:

Read the Room/Write the Room

Popcorn Words (Sight Words)

Alphabet Recognition/Fine Motor Skills

Handwriting/Writing

Each student has their own box where they store their books:

I've posted about my Handwriting/Writing book before but in case you missed it, here is it:

One of my consistent centers is my Handwriting/Writing Bucket.  In the bucket are 26 envelopes (one for every letter of the alphabet!)  The kids write each of the words from the envelope into their dictionaries during center time.  

Their goal is to practice and perfect their handwriting but also to expand their vocabulary (hopefully!)

I've been using this as as Handwriting Center for YEARS and decided it needs an update for next year!

I kept the "easy" pages with the lines like you see in the pictures:

But I also added a little bit more challenging version where the kids have to use the 3 handwriting lines:

AND and even more challenging page with a writing component (kids pick one of the words from the envelope and write a sentence/draw a picture about it):

I also added some fun picture cards (8 for each letter of the alphabet):

And there are also labels for the envelopes to keep the cards in:

Check it out here on TPT!

Once this center is set up it will last the whole year!  Love simplicity!

Next post will be:  Alphabet Recognition/Fine Motor Skills book.

Handwriting Practice (A fun way to practice)

Need a new way to practice writing the alphabet?  My class loves to practice while they sing! 

I laminated a practice (tracing) page for each kid.  They use dry erase marker to trace the letters while they sing.  We use old cheap gloves for erasers. (I confiscate the cheap gloves from lost and found at the end of each year.)

Once they get used to the activity I take away the tracer sheets and they write the letters on their small wipe boards.  

It's a fun way to practice (the kids LOVE it) and it saves me from having to print the sheets over and over and over.

I play a song on the smartboard and they sing while they write.  Here's the song we use:

You can get free printables of  the alphabet lots of places on the internet.  

Here's one that's free:  http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/Lot-01/Printable-ABCs-Alphabet-Print-Practice-Writing-Sheet.pdf

Handwriting/Writing Center Idea

One of my consistent centers is my Handwriting Bucket.  In the bucket are 26 envelopes (one for every letter of the alphabet!)  The kids write each of the words from the envelope into their dictionaries during center time.  

Their goal is to practice and perfect their handwriting but also to expand their vocabulary (hopefully!)

I've been using this as as Handwriting Center for YEARS and decided it needs an update for next year!

I kept the "easy" pages with the lines like you see in the pictures:

But I also added a little bit more challenging version where the kids have to use the 3 handwriting lines:

AND and even more challenging page with a writing component (kids pick one of the words from the envelope and write a sentence/draw a picture about it):

I also added some fun picture cards (8 for each letter of the alphabet):

And there are also labels for the envelopes to keep the cards in:

Check it out here on TPT!

Normally $6.00 on sale through September for $4.00!

Once this center is set up it will last the whole year!  Love simplicity!

Handwriting Zoo

I introduced our handwriting zoo yesterday.  I am telling you people, it is a LIFESAVER!  I used to dread teaching the "handwriting lines" (ok, I still do BUT not as much as I used to!)  

If you haven't checked out the packet yet and you're starting to teach the handwriting house check it out!  It's on sale in my TPT store for $3.00 until the end of September.

Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!  

Yay!

Handwriting Zoo Freebie

One of my very favorite units to teach is my Handwriting Zoo.  I used to HATE not enjoy teaching handwriting all all!  I never could explain the lines and the letter spacing in a way that the kids understood me.  Then one day I had an "ah-ha" moment and started assigning the letters animal names.  Turtles are short so we called a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x & z turtles.  Giraffes have long necks and so do the letters b, d, f, h, k, l & t.  Monkeys have tails like letters g, j, p, q & y.  Capital letters are "Large and In-Charge" just like a gorilla so capital letters are known as gorillas.  I even created a story, some posters and other various activities to accompany the unit.  For more info on the Handwriting Zoo click here to view it on TPT.  It will be on sale for the next few days.

Click here to see another activity I use the animals for.

Anyways, on to my freebie.  Once we got past writing all the letters for practice I then want the kids to carry that over into writing words.  But, of course, a lot were not.... augh!   So I created an activity where the kids cut out the animals and match them up to the correct letter.  For example: the word "lip" would be giraffe turtle, monkey (see above).  At first I printed the animals out on label pages (avery 5160) and made them into stickers but this activity takes quite a few animals so after I ran out of labels I just printed them on to regular paper.

(hint: if you use regular paper and not labels just cut the page into strips and then it's easy for the kids to snip off one animal at a time.)

After they assign every letter the correct animal then they write the word as neatly as they can using the correct letter spacing.  

Clear as mud?

This method has worked wonders for me over the last few years.  What I like most is that if I see a letter not spaced correctly on the line I can say things like "What animal is the letter a?"  The kids can tell me it's a turtle and most of them do a mental head-slap and quickly fix their letter.

It's also really helped my kids know the difference between capital and lowercase letters.

Am I always super picky about handwriting....Goodness No (little Pete the Cat humor)  BUT when we are specifically practicing handwriting or concentrating on writing words neatly this method does the trick for me!

To get the worksheet click here.  To get the animal sheets click here.

The animals I used for this freebie are from DJ Inkers.

Fix-a-Name

My class LOVES Fix-A-Name (Found in Deanna Jump's "Back to School" unit...Thank you Deanna!!) Every day we unscrambled one of our classmates names in the pocket chart. I added a little to the activity to go along with my handwriting lessons. (If you saw my post about my handwriting lessons this is one of they ways I use the animals.) We put the matching animals in the pocket chart and "Animalcise" (Animal Exercise) to the name. After we are all tired out we go back to our table spots and cut apart the same scrambled name and glue it back together for our friend. Every kid gets the name scrambled in a different font. The Fix-a-Name "star" unscrambles his name again on the smartboard and then sits back and relaxes as he waits for his friends to bring his name to him all fixed up!

Teachers Pay Teachers

Wow...I just found out you can't sell DJ Inkers created projects. Umm...I would love to share every project I've ever made but I used DJ Inkers for years! So I guess I will start to revamp a lot of my projects so I can share them with others. One of my favorites is how I teach handwriting. The system I use in my class was all created with DJ Inkers but I think I recreated it pretty well with some graphics I found on scrappindoodles.com.

I'll add some pictures of it in use in my class later. I truly love it! Painless and fun! Click on the picture below to go to my TPT site and take a peak!