By Kristen Chase.
This school year marks the first time my 4.5 year old son has formally written anything, well, other than scribbles.
Unlike my oldest who was drawing faces at 18 months, Drew is pretty typical when it comes to his fine motor skills. Most of the trucks he draws all look almost exactly the same, as do his dinosaurs, which also look quite similar to aliens and his family.
I try not to analyze that one too much (ha!).
He’s been able to write his name for some time now, still struggling a bit with the capital “R” and the “W” that never has an end.
He finally stopped making the “E” like a comb, which sort of made me sad in a way; the letter “E” with tons of extensions is such an adorable sign of early childhood.
So when we started doing more formal work this year, with his Horizons Math book and Explode the Code, I had a feeling that writing the letters would be quite a challenge for him. Aside from the actual fine motor skills, handwriting involves a decent attention span, as well as good frustration tolerance. Neither of those happen to be his forte’ as of yet, but I figured that maybe he’d surprise me.
And really, working with him would be a lesson for both of us.
I decided that I wasn’t going to be super particular just yet, especially since he’s not even five-years old yet; I wanted him to be more successful than not so that he’d want to keep trying rather than give up.
You can see how he started here, which I thought was pretty good for a first try.
After working with him for a couple of days, I did find that it was pretty challenging trying to get him to follow the “rules” of letter making rather than just form lines like a puzzle to create the finished product.
If anything, I wanted to be sure that he was at least learning to write them correctly, even if he wasn’t able to master that skill completely in finished product.
So after a few tries, I remembered how much he loved Lightning McQueen. And since then, he’s greatly improved, even in just under a month of schooling.
All I told him was to pretend that his pencil (or crayon) was Lightning McQueen, and so if he didn’t follow the “track” (namely, the arrows), he might run into the other cars! And with all the rounded-ness of the lower case letters, this worked fabulously!
You can see that he’s a bit improved, with the letters formed better. Staying in the lines wasn’t even really an option a couple of weeks ago, but that’s okay!
But just yesterday, he was determined to write all his letters and have Lightning McQueen “win the race” which is his way of saying that he wrote a letter in such a way that earned him a smiley face (or trophy).
I went with a smiley face because I can’t draw a trophy to save my life.
And well, look at this! I was completely amazed at how well he wrote the letters (note: the lines with two letters reflect my example on the left). And how determined he was to keep trying.
I’m so proud — all thanks to a fast red car!
What creative ways have you come up with to help your kids learn in their own way?
Kristen Chase is a mom of 4, writer, and co-publisher of Cool Mom Picks and Cool Mom Tech, a popular shopping and trendspotting blog for moms, as well as 4 Kids or More, an online resource for the modern larger family. She’s a 2nd generation homeschooler, having been taught middle and high school by her own mother back when people were still using quills and ink wells, and is now a very well-adjusted and socialized homeschool mom herself.