Madison does not like to write..she is left handed for her letters, but also uses her right hand for numbers..She refuses almost to use small letters, I do have wide ruled paper and offer that before anything. but she hates to write..anyone got any ideas? Im a bit lost on this and it makes book work almost impossible..she is more kisnetic/visual learner but she does need to know how to write at a certian level. Help with any advice you can give...
My personal philosophy - she's going to learn to write. Your daughter is about the same age as mine. We don't do a lot of seatwork and copywork. Are you only HSing one? I'd consider letting her go and encouraging her to write things she loves the most, but casually and in passing. For instance: 1. My DD adores her grandmother, who lives in GA (we are in PA). They are "penpals". Perhaps a grandparent can be encouraged to write the first letter - what child doesn't love recieving mail? - with a note that "I can't wait to receive a letter from you!". If the child wants to call grandma, then you can ask grandma to slightly nudge them about how "and as soon as I get a letter from you, I can write you ANOTHER letter!". We also write to the missionaries from our church, which results in international mail (and a geography and cultural lesson, to boot!). 2. Maybe consider letting her write on line-free paper? Especially for creative projects. My kids love to make books and such, and do it on construction paper. Every once in awhile, I note in passing that a ruler would give them a neat straight line to write their letters on, but don't push them. 3. If she likes to make up stories, perhaps you can have her dictate them to you, but you can make errors. She says, "The dog ran..." and you spell out (in pencil) "the cat ran..." or "the dot ran..." Let her correct it. "Oh, I must have misheard you." Eventually, she'll wind up so tired of it, she may just decide to do it herself. 4. Ask her to make out your shopping list before you head to the store. 5. Do more science projects. "Oh, let's see, this is at 32 degrees at 9 o'clock. Let's put that in a table so we can see how much it changes in an hour." We took measurements of our height, head circumfrence, etc last week, with the idea of seeing how much we change over time. The kids wrote down their measurements themselves, as well as what each one was for. If they don't want to write it down, shrug and say, "well, I guess we'll try to remember it," and then "struggle" with it later. Was it at 32 degrees or 23? Hmmm. Again, they'll figure it out. ...and so on. My educational philosophy at this point is more hands-off than hands-on, so *I* personally would relax about it; that may not fit the needs of your family, of course, so take it with a grain of salt. Along the same lines, if you are only HSing one, then you can have her dictate the answers to her math to you, etc and give you the workbook things outloud. Especially in other areas (science, history, etc), this can lead to some great conversations, which IMO is the best part! SG
I agree with ScottieG's tips. I especially recommend the pen pal thing. My ds (same age as your dd) hated writing until we started writing letters. Now he looks forward to it. That and we started writing cursive practice this year...which they both love. The rest is just writing related to their regular work. I'm strict though. I have a no work or fussing during work/ no game policy. Last year anytime handwriting was involved, it would take HOURS instead of the typical 15 minutes. I discovered the game thing works for us. Maybe something similar would work for you. Best of luck. I think it usually gets better...I hope! lol
Thanks for the ideas, I get to a loss sometimes, she does have to do her math work herself, only time I help is when we are dealing with subtacting doubles. Other than that Yes I do alot of dictating work with her but I know she needs to do more than half of the writing. I like the idea of the temp. guage, with winter coming we can watch what it does outside..
I used edhelper's handwriting sheet generator for my kids. When my oldest was kinder and first and even part of 2nd, I would type up something every day for her to trace. I usually let her sit with me while I typed it out so she got to say what she wanted that day. It always had her name, the day of the week, the date, her address and phone number, then it would have a sentence or two about what she was doing that day, or excited was coming up, etc. Now we have a journal from kinder to halfway through 2nd. After that point she begged to learn cursive, so I switched to workbooks that taught that and used www.handwritingforkids.com . I found that when she was concentrating on tracing she wasn't realizing she was training her hand. I probably let her trace a lot longer than any public school did, but her handwriting is beautiful - both manuscript and cursive. I still do it with my son. And his handwriting is really improving.
