By Alyssa Huschen, OTR/L
Daily handwriting practice is necessary for making printing a natural process. The more automatic writing is, the more a child can then focus on WHAT they are writing rather than HOW to write. When participating in e-learning, children may not be practicing handwriting as much as they would be during their typical school day. Choose some of these fun activities to try at home to ensure COVID-19 doesn’t contribute to loss of quality handwriting for your child. Make it a goal to practice handwriting for 5-10 minutes every day.
- Write letters to friends or family, make up a story, or help write the grocery list.
- Play games like tic-tac-toe (use different letters each time), hang man, or guess what word/letter I’m writing.
- Practice handwriting with different utensils or materials. Finger paint, write in shaving cream/pudding/flour/sand, use chalk on the sidewalk, write with washable markers on a mirror or window, write on a tablet or magnadoodle, etc.
- Have your child be the teacher and “teach” you how to write in order to practice verbalizing the correct way to make letters. “Grade” work by circling the best letters or words in order to understand what makes writing legible.
- Print or make up fun sentence starters to complete (i.e. My favorite place to go is… or If I could be an animal, I would be…).
- Play restaurant where your child can prepare simple foods and “sell them” to you. Practice printing by creating a menu to order from.
- Complete mad libs, cross word puzzles, or word scrambles. These can be found online or in activity books.
- Work on number writing by having your child count things around the house and record them (i.e. doors, fans, pictures of them, etc.)
- Complete scavenger hunts. Let your child write down what objects they find based on your clues or let them write down items for you or a sibling to find.
- Cut pictures out of magazines to make a collage and write about it.
- Search Google or Pinterest for many more fun printables and ideas!
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