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Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, in teaching handwriting when homeschooling the early years part 3, I’m showing you samples of our transition in handwriting from the beginning of kindergarten to second grade.

But first, if you missed Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 1 , I wanted you to take away the fact that you want to create a print rich environment and trust the natural process that a child has in wanting to learn how to write.

Warning: Lots of pictures and a long post here!

You know I can’t talk to you unless I have lots of pictures.

Too, I wanted to keep the formal part of how to teaching writing all in one post so it’s easier for you to see the progression.

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3-1

Sometimes the process does not always require a lot of intervention on your part.  Think of yourself as a partner or coach in the writing process.

In Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 2 , it is important to allow plenty of time for your child to focus on strengthening the fine motor muscles.

This happens through a lot of play and NOT asking your child to write on a line at the preschool ages.

Teaching Writing the Early Years

Scooting down through the years now, we want to begin what I call the “formal” teaching writing years, which is about kindergarten to first grade. 

Obviously, children will continue to work on improving the legibility of their penmanship in the later grades.

But today is about focusing on the nitty-gritty of teaching handwriting.

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3 Kindergarten Sample

The reason we want to pay attention to these grade levels or years (not necessarily ages because all children are different) is that children can undergo a significant change during this time. 

They can go from writing illegibly at the beginning of kindergarten to some beautiful beginning cursive by second grade.

I say second grade because that is the end result of the formal teaching which is happening in kindergarten and first grade. 

Again, remember it does not mean penmanship is completely mastered.

But you will see the beautiful transition as they keep fine tuning what they have been taught.

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3 Middle of First Grade

The metamorphosis in penmanship during this time was always amazing to me with each son. 

Too,  Mr. Awesome and Tiny progressed close, but not exactly to this same timeline. 

Each child is different like I mentioned but wanted to repeat that again because teaching each child has not been an exact science.

Teaching Writing to Homeschooled Students

I know too that when I was new to teaching handwriting that seeing actual samples of penmanship progress and understanding the growth process would have helped me more. 

Providing that here for you, I am hoping it will help to give you a gauge for when you are teaching penmanship.

In addition to working on fine motor skills in kindergarten, I worked with each son on beginning sentence writing. 

I would start the sentence and write it down. 

Then, they would copy it, think of the ending and write the word or words.

  I know it sounds a bit crazy, but the less I knew about homeschooling the better teacher I was at the time.

After I read about so many different learning styles and about how I was suppose to teach writing, I started thinking I was a public school teacher. 

I forgot the teacher mom part of me. 

In other words, I didn’t even know about copy work and was already doing that when teaching kindergarten.

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3 Middle of First Grade 2

No, I couldn’t leave well enough alone because I was afraid Mr. Senior 2013 would be behind. (I hated feeling this way at the time.)

So I started as a good teaching momma, then turned Nazi momma.

I focused more on teaching him “penmanship” than just the skill. 

What do I mean by this?

Well take a look at the picture below. 

Instead of teaching him how to write, I had to now push him to learning how to compose sentences. 

Teaching Writing to Homeschooled Students

So I moved from what I knew to do naturally, which was having him to copy what I wrote, to thinking I was running a classroom. 

And though composing and penmanship are linked, I couldn’t expect him to learn something that I had not modeled or introduced to him yet. 

I guess I expected him to know what a title was for his beginning compositions by one of those Vulcan mind melds they do on Star Trek.

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3 Beginning of Second Grade-1

I did allow him to transition between print and cursive up to this time. 

All the while I was teaching cursive, he was still using his print. 

Looking back now, I should have focused on one or two well written sentences using his beginning cursive instead of insisting on 5 well written sentences, which is a lot for this age.

Too, I corrected his spelling, no doubt in red (awful, awful momma) on his page. 

How to Teach Writing from Prek to Second Grade

Though you do want to correct spelling errors as they are writing, it’s better not to jump ship and teach yet another skill like spelling. 

Simply showing him how to spell ski on a separate page and not on his writing like I did in the picture above, then going on would have been much better to do. 

Of course, I expected him to compose, spell and learn penmanship at one swallow. 

A TRUE mistake of a FIRST TIME homeschooler!

Teaching Handwriting When Homeschooling the Early Years Part 3 By the End of Second Grade-1

Though Mr. Senior 2013 survived my teaching him writing, I shed a few tears here and there as I think how hard I was on him. 

He  excelled and wanted to learn NOT because I needed to constantly poke and prod him, but because he loved me.

As the teacher mom, I realized I held a lot of power over my little guy and that because of his love for me, he always showed up to try his best. 

Thankfully, the other kids that come after the “first” get the full benefit of your experience.

More Writing Curriculum Tips

Only another homeschool mom can know the utter feeling of sheer delight by you when you have taught a child the writing process. 

Yes, I made plenty of mistakes, but learned in the long run to trust my natural instinct. 

Staying balanced about what I learned about the how-tos of penmanship and not always applying it to my family has been important too. 

Sometimes all the tips just did not apply to my situation at the time.

Preschool Letter Recognition

I hope you do the same thing with what I have shared here with you and apply only the tips that will benefit you. 

I would love to celebrate your tiny triumphs with you when you have taught a child how to write. 

Have you had the honor yet?

I am not done yet with this topic.

I have one more post to share about some of the activities we did and and supplies I used in teaching my crew how to write.

Beyond Museums and Zoos Homeschool Field Trip Form

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Pondering the possibilities of field trips in South America has my brain racing about new field trip ideas and places.  But before I scoot on to that adventure, I want to share today my ideas for beyond museums and zoos homeschool field trip form.

After you have homeschooled for a few years, you realize that some places are what I call keepers for each year.  They are places you don’t mind visiting again and again like museums and a zoo.  But as time marches on and kids grow, you need ideas for other places.

So I created a homeschool field trip reference chart that is divided by season that you can easily add to your 7 step homeschool planner.  I added 10 ideas for each season.

In listing the ideas, I tried to avoid some places, not all though that would be pretty obvious in a particular season.  You know about them already and besides you probably have traditions or will have them in each season.

For example, we had one annual event in January to Incredible Pizza that all of our kids loved.  As adults we could never figure out why not just one, but all ages, young and old loved that trip!!  The place is huge and had lots of games, an indoor skating rink, car races and bowling.  We just couldn’t figure out why it was more special than other places like that we had visited.  It became our group’s tradition in January.

Another thing to remember about field trips as you enter more relaxed homeschooling is that not every field trip do you need to meet educational objectives.

I know groups are different from area to area, but in forming my field trip group it was understood that our main goal was socialization.  I learned as a hard-nosed teacher that learning didn’t have to be so hard and it was better remembered in a fun setting.

Meeting educational goals is tops on our list, but it runs second to our main goal of socialization.  The families in my group preferred our field trip time to be one where the kids had time to interact, form lasting friendships and not be about hearing long-winded lectures.

Beyond Museums & Zoos. 10 Field Trip Ideas for Each Season

Surprisingly, when I relaxed as a teacher and tried not to drill my kids on everything we learned, they too relaxed and wanted to learn more about the places we visited.

I hope you enjoy this form as I plan for a few more field trip forms, but wanted to get this to you as the new year started.   You know how I take my time in creating my forms because they each come from a special place or from my experience in my journey that I want you to know about.  So I really want them useful and practical too.

Download Homeschool Field Trip Reference Chart Here.

Begin building your Free 7 Step Homeschool Planner

7 Easy Steps – “Tons of Options & Pretty Color”

Step 1. Choose a Pretty Front/Back Cover

Step. 2. Choose Calendars/Appointment Keepers

Step 3. Choose Goals/Objectives

Step 4. Choose Lesson Planning Pages Right For You!

Step 5a. Choose Unique forms JUST for You! Not a kazillion other people

Step 5b. Choose MORE Unique Forms JUST for You!

Step 5c. Choose MORE MORE Unique Forms Just for You!

Step 6. Personalize It

Step 7. Bind it! Love it!

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Helping our Homeschool Children Find their Inner Drive When We are Not Sure We Have It

Helping our Homeschool Children Find their Inner Drive When We are Not Sure We Have It

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When and how to allow children to exert their independence can be a controversial one, but helping our homeschool children find their inner drive when we are not sure we have it is something that all of us ending up facing at one time or another.

Homeschooling for me means being real even at times when I may not want to talk about certain things. 

One of those things I question myself about is I’m a hovering homeschool mom.

Like anybody else, on my good days, I have the snap to be sure we are starting our day off right. But today, I want to share some tips for when you don’t have the drive to homeschool.

Is it fair that we expect our children to carry on because of their inner drive when we don’t have it? ABSOLUTELY!  I’ll explain in a minute.

Does Micro Managing Mean No Supervision?

Thinking back to when my sons were babies, mischief knew no bounds.  They had a fearless attitude about investigating everything they wanted to.  It is more like a reckless determination they have when they are babies. 

Then it happens. They get “trained” and somehow, if we are not careful, we can introduce to them negative views about the way they are suppose to learn. 

Loosely translated here that normally means on our time table, on our schedule and in the place in the house we normally think it is better to learn.

We confuse accountability with scrutiny. 

Micro managing does nothing but squeeze out every bit of delight for learning that a child is naturally born with. 

We want to feed our child’s inner drive and allow them to be independent to the extent that we can.

One way to be sure you have a child that is totally dependent on you for his homeschool journey is to plan every subject for him instead of with him. 

What I am saying is that an inner drive for any person and especially our children is connected with a measure of independence. Sometimes though finding the line between helping and hovering is not so easy.

Helping Our Homeschool Children Find their Inner Drive When We Are Not Sure We Have It at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

It makes complete sense that we should expect our kids to carry on with pursuing their dreams and goals because we are raising them to be independent adults. 

This starts from the smallest act they should be doing on their own. It starts with self-motivation to begin their homeschool day.

Feeding their inner drive is a gradual process based on tiny little decisions they get to make each day.

When kids are young, include them in choosing topics they want to study about. It also could mean transitioning them to an assignment sheet for the day. 

As they grow older, it means giving them goals for the week and letting them meet those goals without our constant “helping” hovering.

Many days because of being tired I questioned my method of education.  On days when I was at my weakest, my sons were thriving because of the freedom they have had each day to foster their self-motivation.

I hope these 3 tips help you on days that your get-up-and-go didn’t even show up for the day. 

These tips helped me to remember that the effects of my training them was still ongoing.

1)  Allow our kids to make decisions as much as possible now.  Thinking ability is something that is learned, not passed on.  When then should we start loosening the reins of control?  Well, for each of my sons it has been different.

It is not so much a determined age as it is a gradual process. 

As I mentioned before it starts off small in the younger years and it could mean providing a place for them to put away their books for the day, assigning them chores and explaining the expectations of whatever assignment they have and then walking away to allow them to do it on their own.

As my sons have grown older, it has mean allowing them to visit customers at their home with my husband’s supervision as they have helped to run our family owned business. 

There has been ample opportunity for them to make decisions homeschool related, life related, or otherwise.

When they make their own decisions and it clearly starts with their homeschooling choices, then for whatever reason you may be lagging behind in your motivation, they will keep pushing through for the fact that it is their decision. 

Inner drive is about being motivated for the right reasons.

2.) Clear Consequences.  Constant worry about whether they will get their school work done constantly wears you out only.  Failure has been the best teacher for my boys.

It is only natural as a parent that I want to protect my sons.  But when they have made some stupid decisions or even said stupid things, clear cut consequences have made lasting impressions. 

Motivating Homeschooled Kids

It is not an attack on your parenting when you allow your children to learn from their mistakes, but a credit to it.

Earlier I talked about setting goals with each of your children.  At first when they are little, it is about a goal for a subject or for the day. 

As they grow older, it is about setting goals for a week or even a longer period. 

The very basics of setting any goal is clear cut expectations and clear cut consequences.  They go hand in hand. 

You need to understand from them when the work is expected to be done and they need to understand from you what will happen when it is not done.  I find that works way better than me constantly asking them about when their work is complete.

As adults, we like to work on tasks at times good for us.  We feed our inner drive through the freedom to choose tasks when and how we want to do them. 

Children are in training and adolescents are “adults in training”, so it is no different for them.  There is no need to have continual conflict in my home when school is not done.

Clear cut consequences for their lack of follow through is the best teacher.  Even at times when I have been embarrassed by their actions, I have not hidden it or justified to another homeschooling family if any of sons’ actions were negative.  My sons, on the other hand, have learned valuable lessons whether it’s from their negative behavior, lack of doing school work or just plain laziness.

3.) Homeschooling IS about preparation for adulthood.  As the new year may be getting ready to start, I try to remember that homeschooling takes on so much more meaning that completing a math book or doing a handwriting assignment.

By comparison, academic things have been easier than teaching my sons that nobody will be sitting by them for the rest of their lives motivating them to study, work, learn how to make good decisions and get along with others and respect them.

Their attitude toward learning, their view of their school for the day and how they spent their day have been huge indicators of the men they are turning out to be.

Aptitude or Attitude

I have learned backing off as a parent doesn’t mean backing down when needed. 

Too, by nature I am not a hands-off mom.  I love all the interaction, big hugs and probably more so when they are in high school. 

More than I can say in words, I love interacting with my sons. This type of relationship with my sons will not change.

Helping your children find their inner drive doesn’t mean they have to be alone during the day. 

It does mean allowing them choices to ponder, dream, plan their future and foster a love for learning that will feed their inner drive. 

I don’t have to have the inner drive each day, I just have to show up each day.

You’ll love these other tried and true tips below!

Hugs and love ya,

A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler Part 1 Early Years

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

With glorious rays of sunshine and melodious sounds of chirping birds, I just knew that bright beaming faces would be eagerly greeting me each morning (ok I do tend to be over idealistic at times) ready to start school.  A day in the life of a homeschooler is different for each family, but it is also very different within a family each year as I have learned.

It’s not like you don’t know, when your children are young, that things won’t change as they grow older.  I knew, but I didn’t know.  For example, I just knew that our Bible reading routine would stay the same because it is my top priority in the day.

Getting our reading done first in the day was all that counted.  Cough, choke, sputter—it just does not work out that way and for many reasons.

Let me back up though and share a few tips that worked for me when the boys were all very young.  At the time that I started “worrying” that we weren’t starting our day early enough, my kids were 8, 6 and 2 years old.

Playing IS Learning

Swinging from one extreme to another in scheduling attempts, I think, is pretty common when you start homeschooling.  It’s not like we plan to switch around so much, but we are just trying to find a balance.

Knowing that I tended to show up as a drill sergeant (bad momma) early on in my homeschool years, I tried harder the next few years to be more relaxed.

A Day In the Life Of A Homeschooler Part 1 | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I let the kids play longer in the morning, but that ended up being more difficult for me because they just didn’t want to stop and sit down.

Finding a balance when your kids are all very young is important.  I learned to involve them in my chores as I started the  day.

Playing is learning and they needed that time each day at those early ages, but key was keeping me us on task.  So I used a timer for a few months as we learned our routine.  Okay, some of my drill sergeant mentality wasn’t too bad.  Actually the kids thought it was kind of fun coming back and checking the timer and I made sure I used it as a way to track our time and not feel stressed by it.

Too, I learned that involving them in house keeping and getting ready for the day allowed for an energy release for them, but also reminded them that it was a school day.

Look at how my day flowed then:

5:00 a.m. Mom time. I normally read, study and pray at this time and generally enjoy a few quiet moments.  I still hold somewhat to this time period in the morning.  Also, this was my time to be with toddler if he woke up then.

7:00 a.m. Kids up and time for them to wake up.  Not much time needed before the kids are ready to be active.

7:30 a.m. Breakfast and Bible reading.

8:00 a.m. or so to about 8:30 a.m. Chores, getting dressed and room cleaning.

8:30 a.m. to 8:45. a.m.  School starts. I learned that  starting sooner in the day relieved my stress of the kids getting sidetracked.  It allowed enough time for them to play for a few minutes.

10:30 a.m. Break for snack or to play.

11:00 a.m  Back to school.

11:30 – 1:30 p.m. We eat lunch early, so we broke earlier for the day.  We did more chores during this time and I made sure I decided what was for supper too and prepped it at this time too.

1:30 – 2:00 Read aloud time together.

This was the general flow of my day for many years.  But, life marches on and things change.  I will share how some things changed and why you have to change how you schedule too in part 2 of A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler.

How do you start your day each day?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Trail of Tears Unit Study and Lapbook

Want to read some more?

The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule

How To Create a Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick To

Carpe Diem: Homeschool Schedule by The Day, Month, & Year.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 1: One Room Schools – A Thing of the Past?

How To Fake Homeschooling

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Mouth the words fake education and whatever issues homeschoolers disagree about are quickly forgotten as they mount a united assault.

Good thing I will only be sharing tips today about how to fake homeschooling.  No, I am not talking about counterfeit homeschooling, but about improvising when you need to. You know, those days when the public school is looking really good is when you need to dig deep to find a solid routine.

Fake Homeschooling

Improvising or creating homeschool days spontaneously without preparation is an area I struggle in constantly.

Admiring artists who improvise and create while painting and musicians who have mastered the art of improvisation, I think about them often when I have to homeschool through times when my plans might not work.

How To Fake Homeschooling - Can we do counterfeit homeschooling?

I have learned that my love for lists, planners, schedules and well-laid out lesson plans can be more of a hindrance than help at times when homeschooling is challenging.

Reminding myself of homeschooling beliefs that I hold dear to my heart and wanting to fend off any feelings of being defeated as we get ready to embark on our huge move across the continent, I want to share a few of my tips today.

Improvise = At One’s Pleasure

Too,  I am hoping you come away armed, encouraged and with a real can-do attitude if and when you have big changes in your homeschool routine.

Nobody does it better than you.

While easier to combat later on in your journey when you have tiny little successes along the way, the thinking that returning your child to public school is the solution can haunt you at anytime in your journey.

At first, I didn’t even have to have a hard year before I thought somebody else could do a better job of instructing my child.  Along the way I learned that when I stopped “talking shop” or worrying all the time about curriculum, quit researching on all the material to cram in a year to avoid big gaps in learning and being behind, I could focus my energy on asking other homeschoolers how they found a curriculum that fit their family, how to use my time wisely to strengthen weak academic skills and to accept the level my child is on.

Yep, nobody does it better than you.

Learning is not a small window of time that quickly closes.

Accepting the fact that I will not be able to school many days in the upcoming months or that it may not look like it does now, I have learned that learning is not a small window of time that is permanently sealed and all is lost.

Avoiding a common pitfall that children will not learn or pick up material previously not mastered is the release to beginning a creative and individualistic education.

For example, as we leaving our co-op and friends here in Texas, my heart is heavy on one hand because Tiny will not have the same homeschool experiences my older sons have had in our group.  However, I am sure my older boys will not experience to the same depth the rich culture, very individualized, extensive field trips and hands-on learning we plan for Tiny in South America.

As mom, I hope all my sons will appreciate the uniqueness of the country, but as a homeschooling teacher I know Tiny’s time for learning more is a wide open window.

Be patient with yourself as you learn how to create out of the box lesson plans and plan on the spur of the moment.

Even the most organized loving homeschooler needs to embrace the wild side to homeschooling.  There is no denying that our children can be powerful learning machines.

Sometimes we overthink the process of learning instead of accepting teachable moments that come up in life.  When I moved away from scripted lesson plans and embraced more of a unit study approach my homeschooling year came alive.

Thinking now as we prepare to move overseas, which is something I never dreamed could happen, I have those same feelings I had when I left scripted lesson plans.   Excitement, mixed with worry, mixed with a huge dose of anticipation have to be all normal feelings.

Even if things only work out for just a few short months due to the Mr.’s health, I will not have regretted this change in our homeschooling adventure.

I’m still working on mastering the quality of patience as I hope to add more spontaneous and spur of the moment days as I learn how to fake homeschooling during our move.  But right now, I say: “Pinch me, am I dreaming?”

Look at these other tips:

Hugs and love ya

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