Now we know our ABC'S!

We finally finished our letters this week! I was hoping to get them all done by September and we finally did! A few years ago we went to a training for Handwriting Without Tears and have been using it ever since. It really is such an amazing program, and have never seen anything work so fast and so effectively with the children.

They say not to work on pushing letters to hard before age 4, so I try to keep it all really light, fun, and easy going the first year. We started in about January after giving the munchkins a few months to settle in. For each letter we start by introducing it at circle time. I draw it first on the easel and we discuss how to write it using HWT terms (big line, little line, big curve, little curve). Then each child takes a turn writing it.

Then we go to tables and do the letter worksheet from the Handwriting Without Tears My First School Book (used to be Get Set For School). I just make copies of the pages the first year and then this year they will be doing their own workbook. After they finish their workbook they get a date stamp and a Hello Kitty stamp (obv) :)

Usually within the next day or so we make a letter collage. I cut out the lines or curves and the children use glue sticks to glue them onto construction paper. I keep them all connected and they just got to take them home this week.

To celebrate finishing our letters I bought the kids cheez-it letters, and magnetic letters & numbers for the classroom :)