Beginning Handwriting
Grade Level(s): 1-2
By: Dianne Paul, 1-2 Blended Teacher

Activity to practice beginning handwriting skills.

Materials:

• List of names of class members done in appropriate writing style
• Bus cutouts of yellow construction paper
• A word list, generated by the children, of words seen on a bus.

Plan:

After talking about all of our names and how important it is to have names on things and be able to read each others names, we talk about our friends in our class. We talk about coming to school and using the bus.

Then we have the children begin their writing career in first grade by writing children's names on the bus by the windows and drawing the faces in the windows. They may also want to put the stop sign that the bus has, or the number, or the district name, on the bus, whatever the children see on the buses that pick them up.

It is a good beginning of the year writing activity and to become familiar with each others names. It is very successful for most children as well.

Comments:

I am a thirty year veteran and still learning all the time. I work with a team of seven teachers in our primary wing and we are always on the lookout for ideas from others. I have taught predominantly first grade over the years and have enjoyed watching kids learn. I teach in Centennial district at Lynch View School. We are sandwiched between Portland and Gresham.