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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Reusable Prewriting Worksheets

My three year old drew faces, rather intricate ones, all of a sudden, demonstrating she could control her writing utensil. So, I grabbed a few of those preschool readiness workbooks that I had picked up somewhere and she blew through all the pages that didn't require her to make letters. (She made the number "1" but anything more complicated than that was not within her grasp.) A few hours later, she brought the workbook back to me and asked to do more "school" and made sure she showed off her "school" to Daddy when he got home.

She needs more practice to be able to do the letter practice in the books. She needs some prewriting practice.

The only books I thought would work for us this is this series of Kumon books, but I have a feeling I'd spend $8 for an hour of her working and then she'd ask for more school. Now if it were a laminated/dry erase book, I'd be all over it.

So here are a group of sites that have plenty of printable worksheets to choose from (print on draft ink setting!) so we can do more school.
{You can google, "Line tracing worksheets," "Fine motor skill worksheets" or "prewriting worksheets" to find sites such as these}

Our Homeschooling Expedition Page of Links to Prewriting Worksheets

Handwriting 1

Ed Helper Visual Perception Skills

Tracing Lines Kids Learning station

Pre-printing Practice

Tls Fine Motor skills worksheets

And a nice Activities booklet for Prewriters

Now, how to make them reusable? Slip them into a page protector for a 3 ring binder and have the child write on it with a dry erase marker. Then you can easily switch out pages and save the old ones for re-rotation or the next child.

If you know of any other good sites that have many options for prewriters, let us know in the comment section!

3 comments:

Bellen said...

this site
dltk-kids.com
has tons of kids' stuff including traceable letters and numbers. I'm sure you'll be able to find something useful.

Darlene said...

Single mom home schooling 3 kids = couldn't afford to spend $$$ on disposable workbooks or printing stuff off from the web. Have you calculated how much it costs to print from your computer? Sometimes it's a LOT more than buying books.

What to do? Oh, wait! I have a bunch of page protectors and I have a bunch of erasable markers. What if I use the protectors that are open on 2 sides, slip it over the page and let the child write on the page protector?? YES! One workbook can be used over and over. Mostly, they don't care that they've already "done" that page, they just want to "write". Worked well for us. You could also laminate the pages or just cover them with clear contact paper. Also, you can use an overhead projector pen. They take more effort to erase, but don't smudge as easily as erasable markers do.
HTH

Melissa Jagears said...

Thanks, Darlene. I had thought about the laminating or clear tape but was absolutely certain that couldn't be cost effective, BUT the page protectors could be used over and over again AND the papers can be switched out. Thanks so much. I'll post reedit the post for that suggestion.