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.
Lacing is a great fine motor activity, and most kids go through a phase where they enjoy working with lacing cards. It helps promote focus and is a great quiet activity for kids to do in the car or to fill time in the classroom. And of course knowing how to lace is the beginning of knowing how to sew, which is great for all kids to learn (more on teaching kids to sew here).
There are lots of ways to make your own lacing cards. This one is just a pin but it’s easy to make lacing cards with any shape a child is into using cardboard and a nail to poke the holes. This could be fun for letter and number recognition or spelling the child’s name. Or try this version from Hey Azka, which uses a hole punch to make bigger holes so you can lace with shoe laces.
You can also just do lacing cards with paper, but it’s a great idea to print them on card stock and/or laminate them to make them sturdier for little hands. Homeschool Share has a set of alphabet lacing cards, which are free with email signup. Deceptively Educational has a set of number lacing cards with numbers 0 to 10.
Picklebums has some basic shape lacing cards, too.
Living Life and Learning has a bunch of cute printable lacing cards, including back to school designs, shoes kids can lace and learn to tie and ocean themed lacing cards. She also has tips for making your own lacing cards.
A Rose Tinted World made their lacing cards with craft foam, which makes them a little more durable than paper and you can cut it more easily than cardboard. They used a die cutting machine but you can also cut shapes by hand.
I also love the cat and mouse cards from Seam Whisperer. They also have some spring themed designs. So cute!
If you want to make lacing cards that are more open ended, check out this tutorial form Pretty Life Girls to make lacing cards that are more like geo boards. Theirs are made with wood but you can also do this with cardboard, craft foam or card stock.
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/