Chalkboard books & Handwriting without Tears

Lily found the chalkboard books that we haven’t worked with in a while & she was quick to pull them out.  Armed with chalk Maggie followed to the table & they shared the books back & forth practicing writing skills.

Maggie did a great job practicing her letters.  She does well with these books as the chalk stands out well on the pages and they keep her interested in writing because the texture really does feel nice to write on.  Lily has done a fantastic job working on tracing. She was stubborn to start, but once she did she followed through & wanted to do it on her own.  Some pictures show her work.  Other my examples to get her started.  Sometimes modeling is enough to get her to try independently.

Maggie has no problem holding chalk like a pencil.  The girls usually use small pieces of chalk for writing to encourage proper pencil grip but I found that Lily holds larger sticks of chalk like she holds the small ones.  She doesn’t hold it like a writing instrument such as a pen, crayon, marked or pencil.  She holds it like its a little piece which leaves a good bit of it sticking out at the end she writes with. I correct the posture but it makes sense why she keeps switching back.  With other writing instruments she holds them properly forgetting sometimes.

I love the focus Lily has as she practices writing in the pictures above.  In these photos Lily is using the chalk and has corrected her pencil grip to write smaller & in between the lines as well as for precision.  She is also practicing in the handwriting without tears workbook.

This particular workbook focuses on using lines (like the double lined chalkboard) and forming short sentences, recognizing the target letter or sound within that sentence.

Two things Maggie has taken interest in are money (counting) and telling time.  We talk about the day of the week & month doing daily charts that are in the main rooms of the house.  We don’t do them all every day, we pick one. I have a time of the day board that references morning, noon, afternoon, evening & night.  It introduces the AM/PM and has a clock with hands and a place to write the time out in digits.  Lily likes to talk about the weather too. Maggie is intrigued with the clock.  So we are working on just the hours right now and will touch up on the minutes next week sometime.