Ideas and resources
Do our children really need to learn cursive writing in today’s world? Um YES! I am a big believer in keeping things old school. Here is an interesting article outlining 5 important reasons why your children should continue to learn how to do cursive writing. Don’t worry though if your School decides to remove it from the curriculum then you can create your own writing sheets and teach your children at home.
I love the idea of unit studies, which can be done at school, in a homeschool environment or just for fun at home as a way to learn about something specific your kids might be into (or maybe that you are interested in and want them to know more about).
Simply Learning Together put together a homeschool unit study on the Vikings, which sounds like a lot of fun, first off, but it also walks you through the process of how she develops a unit study for her kids so you can do it, too.
It’s a pretty simple process that involves going to the library, reading and researching yourself, then developing some activities and lessons based on what you have learned.
This unit study for the Vikings, for example, shares the books she read and how she planned out the activities. In the post you’ll find a link to a printable map they used, and she talks about different activities they did including baking bread, having a super cute Viking lunch (a sandwich with banana horns to make it look like a Viking helmet!), working with runes, having a snack in “Viking horns” (waffle cones) as well as music, language arts and notebook activities they did.
You could definitely build off these ideas using the books available in your local public library or through doing your own research to find more information and activities your kids might be interested in depending on their age. You could throw in some Viking mythology, for example (I love Norse Mythology for Smart People as a source). Add some STEM with this how to build a Viking ship activity from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus, or make a Viking shield out of cardboard with this idea from This Crafty Family. There are tons of great ideas out there once you start looking!
[Photo: Simply Learning Together]
Yes, I was very dismayed when I found out the schools around here stopped teaching cursive a decade ago. How are kids supposed to read historical documents, sign a check or contract?
Schools are dumbing down the kids now.
*rant* So americans are still writing cursive the same way it was written in the 18th century? Cos over here it has evolved. The cursive I learned in school in the 80’s is different from what my old aunt and grandma learned and that’s different from 19th c cursive, which is different from 18th c cursive. In fact, most in my and my parents’ generations struggle with 19th c cursive and find 18th close to impossible to decipher most of the time. My sis is into genealogy and she hates going back to the 18th c because it’s so hard to read the handwriting (not least since you have to keep in mind that we all have our personal style and that included the priests writing the documents). And she has spent several years reading old cursive. Kids can’t automatically read historical documents just because they can write in cursive (and, honestly how many adults have ever used their knowledge of it to read important documents themselves?). No, I don’t buy that argument.
Knowledge of old cursive is useful and, yes, calligraphy is beautiful. That doesn’t mean it needs to be mandatory in school, other things are much more important. I do however get the importance of signatures, one does still use that sometimes to sign documents, but it is possible to create a signature without being skilled at cursive. It doesn’t have to be legible to begin with. *end of rant*
As for what killed cursive, now that computers are being blamed, this is a good article: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/