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.
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Bird Learning Activities for Kids
As it starts to warm up in the spring, lots of new creatures arrive on the scene, including baby birds and birds that migrated south for the winter and are returning with the spring. There are lots of fun ways to learn about birds, so let’s get going!
First you might want to talk about the life cycle of a bird. This craft from I Heart Crafty Things is specifically about chickens, but of course you could color your bird in different ways to have it represent a different bird if you want. (The book From Egg to Chicken is another great way to teach the life cycle of birds to younger kids.)
Observe birds outside more easily by making them bird feeders. You can make them out of egg cartons, like this one from Crafts on Sea, or out of fruit rinds, like this one from Thimble & Twig.
Make a cute bird’s nest craft using a paper plate and dot markers with this tutorial from 3 Dinosaurs. Or have kids go on a scavenger hunt in the yard or on the playground so they can make their own nests. All the details are at The Crazy Outdoor Mama.
Embark on the Journey has a lovely backyard birds unit study with printables you can download when you enter your email address. It has three-part cards, a word scramble, journal pages for recording observations and more.
If you want to add some STEM to your bird learning activities, you can learn about how to build a nest and give it a try with this STEM challenge from Views from a Stepstool. This gives you a chance to talk about the things birds use to make their nests and how they actually do it to keep their eggs safe.
Or you can learn about how different kinds of bird beaks work for the kinds of jobs they need to do, with this experiment from Left Brain Craft Brain. It will get kids thinking about what different birds eat and how the shape of their beaks makes it easier to access that food. Kids will have lots of fun with this one as they find the best tools to use on different “foods.”
Theresa says
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.
manekibeader says
*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/