Making Handwriting Fun (and Phonics, Too!)

I don't like to buy handwriting curriculum beyond kindergarten. I think they are boring and feel like busy work. But students do need a lot of practice. We do copywork, and when a little older, written narrations and dictation. Meanwhile, though, I like to find fun ways for my younger students to practice their handwriting.

This is one of my favorite ways of making handwriting exciting. Crayola makes some markers called Color Switchers. These markers have two ends. At one end, you can write just like a regular marker, but if you use the tip at the other end, whatever was written with the first color magically changes to a new color!
I write whatever words I want the student to practice on a sheet of paper.

Then he takes the other end of the marker and traces over the word as carefully as he can.

The more careful he is, the more he is able to switch my red to his yellow.

Today Quentin was very curious about "silent-e" words, so we talked about how the "e" changes the other vowel from a short to long vowel but then I used the markers to show which letters were silent. We would trace over the letters to sound out, changing their colors from red to yellow, and then left the "silent e" yellow. He had fun writing his own words for me to trace and sound out.

For his reward for work well done, I let him color pictures with them.
But after he was finished, I put them away so that they would be special for our next time writing with them. 

Links: 

• We Don't Need No Education/Discovering Montessori English Link-Up