Goodness – it has been a busy few weeks around here! Wedding season is in full swing, and between that, soccer practice for Chris, and life in general.. let’s just say I have graduated to 2 cups of coffee a day 
I have wanted to share a program that I started with Chris awhile back that has helped him tremendously. Chris is in kindergarten, and handwriting is not one of his strong points. Whenever I watched him write I noticed that he was writing a lot of his letters backwards, he often started at the bottom instead of the top, and his writing was all over the place. I knew that with writing like that it was impossible for him to write fluently – how could his thoughts flow onto paper when his writing was so choppy? So I looked around for some solutions, and someone recommended a program called Handwriting Without Tears. I bought the teacher’s edition as well as the workbook, and was very impressed with the layout and the directions.
But what really impressed me was the paper that Chris brought home from school after just the first week of working with him:
A drastic difference! Normally his letters were all over the place, and he would usually only do a few on each line. And it only took a few minutes a day. So far we have finished going through all of the capital letters.
Ok.. in our house, we like doing projects! Anna is my painter – she loves to mix all the colors. Chris is more of a creator. He is always trying to make something out of scraps of paper, scotch tape (we go through a ton of it!) and pipecleaners. So I have learned to keep a good supply on hand…
I keep everything (except the paint – that is kept out of reach!) in buckets in a shelving unit in our kitchen. The kids know they have to keep everything at the table, but from there they are free to create as they please.
A side note about the paint.. I use crayola paints, and they are great. They come in 10 little bottles in a box. I usually take 4-5 colors and pour a little of each on a plate, and then give one to each kid with a paintbrush. They usually do get it on the table, their hands, etc- but all I have to do is wipe it with a damp sponge and it comes clean… thank you, Crayola
Have fun!
So.. in honor of summer, which is fast approaching… I thought it would be fun to have a little giveaway. Leave a comment below, and at 9 pm Sunday evening I will randomly choose one person to receive a set of the paints and some brushes.. and I might even throw in some other goodies! Yay for keeping kids occupied with something other than television!
