I had used "Handwriting Without Tears" for my oldest, but when my second daughter wanted to learn cursive, I looked for a way to do it free. (I also wanted her to learn a "prettier" form than HWOT.) Here's what I found, in four free, easy steps!
1. Teach them the basics with these free worksheets: http://www.kidzone.ws/cursive/index.htm
2. Then, create your own tracing pages here: http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/cursive/index.htm
- I like these pages because they have the dashed horizontal lines so the kids can practice the correct height of the letters with the middle line.
- This site is great because you can see what the pages look like in real time.
- I spent 10 minutes copying and pasting 60 of the kids shorter catechisms into the space, printing a page at a time, and ended up with 30 pages of practice. That will last us 60 days! By then, she'll be more than ready for cursive copywork.
3. Create your own copywork documents with a cursive font. I like Learning Curve Cursive Font. (It's free!) She writes this into her own notebook. (I move to Wide Rule Notebooks now.)
4. Once she's mastered copying cursive to cursive, I have her start "translating" from a regularly printed text. From here on out, everything she writes is in cursive.
This brings up the question: How do I create my own copywork, and why do I need it? Here are a few quick points, but I'll go into more depth in a later post:
- I create my own copywork at the beginning of the school year of Bible Passages I'd like them to learn and other texts that relate to our history subject.
- Here's a free link to the copywork document I created for Early American History. This is a standard font. However, when I print it for my kids, I use a font that matches their age. (Learning to print: Primer Print. Learning Cursive: Learning Curve. Older Children: Any font works.)