Handwriting Without Tears

Unit: Handwriting Without Tears

Main Focus:  fine motor skills, basic understanding of fundamentals of handwriting

Have you heard of HWWT?  (Learn more about it here:  www.hwtears.com)  I love it and we use it at our center.  It really takes off in my classroom, as preschoolers begin "real writing" around that age.  I've done this unit a few times and now that we've had so many recent transitions in and out of the Tank, it's time to start from square one again.

I often wonder how my teachers taught handwriting when I was in preschool (20+ years ago).  I only went for a year and I know my teachers believed in play based learning, but I have no memories of learning to write.  My first writing memory is in kindergarten we had to write and memorize our phone numbers and I wrote the 4 backwards.  I remember writing 4's and R's backwards.

I don't get the opportunity to teach writing numbers, and I'm alright with that.  Teaching uppercase can be challenging enough.  Once the art order comes in, fingers crossed it's sometime this week as we finish up our fire safety unit, I'll feel more prepared.  We already have most of the HWWT materials like the wood pieces, Mat Man, and most of the Roll-A-Dough flash cards.  We usually don't get to the chalk board stuff.  I managed to order some play dough since the play dough we make in class is non-bake and usually ends up too dry or too oily and has to be thrown away by the end of the week.  I also ordered some plastic capital letters that I'm planning on throwing in a sensory table with various sized pieces of pipe cleaners so they can bend them into letters.  The plastic letters will also be used in a water table letter-fishing game.

More fine motor/alphabet activities:

Math:

• alphabet matching game
• letter pattern boards
• small groups to evaluate individual skills
• tweezer games

Dramatic play:

• label materials and where things go: STOVE, REFRIGERATOR, TABLE, CHAIR...

Science:

• make alphabet cookies (practice making either letters or curves and lines with dough)
• puzzles (including one of an alphabet train!)
• magnets

Questions:  Do you implement HWWT practices in your class?  What do you think of it?  If not, how do you teach handwriting?  Please share thoughts, ideas, additional activities/variations.  

Learning is the beginning of wealth.  Learning is the beginning of health.  Learning is the beginning of spirituality.  Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins. -Jim Roth

Fire Fighters to the Rescue

What a week!  The kids LOVED this unit so much that Ms. H and I decided to continue with it through next week as well.  There's so much to talk about and explore.

Good feeling:  Several parents have come up to me and told me how excited their preschooler has been with the unit.  One parent even said her son spent their entire drive home telling her all about what we did in school, told his older brother when they got home, and then told his dad during dinner.  How awesome is that?  Hearing that solidifies that I'm doing my job well.

Who doesn't want their kids to be so engrossed with what's going on at school that they have to tell everyone!  I hope to keep that up with future curriculum.  I'm not sure what Ms. H has planned for next week, but I have a few ideas, if needed, to pull out of my hat.

The BEST day EVER:  I think the highlight of everyone's week was our after circle activity on Thursday.  I wrote in the daily note on Tuesday that we'd have a special Fire Fighter Day on Thursday, which meant that everyone was encouraged to come in wearing fire fighter gear (raincoats, boots, and a hat).  The majority of the class participated and it was fun.  Lucky for us we had enough materials to share for those who forgot/didn't have costumes.  At the start of circle we explained the activity and expectations.

Activity: The circle time rug turned into the fire station.  I drew a quick fire station building on our giant white board.  The Sharks were fire fighters sleeping in the station.  The bell (a maraca) went off to let them know there was a fire we needed to put out.  The fire fighter gear (jackets and hats because they went to sleep in our boots.  Helping put on 15 pairs of boots is very time consuming.) was on chairs with circle time name tags so they could identity their belongings.  The fire truck was made of chairs lined up in a few rows of four and a row of two.  There was one chair in the front for the "fire chief" (a teacher).  I ended up being the fire chief and Ms. H helped take pictures for documentation.  Once everyone was dressed and seated we started up the engine and sang the first stanza of Hurry! Hurry! Drive the Fire Truck! (Lyrics at the end of the post)  Once we arrived at the fire, everyone got out to find and extinguish the fires.  During our camping unit the Sharks painted toilet paper rolls for a camp fire, so Ms. H set up little campfires all around the room.  Each Shark was giving a rhythm stick to use as a hose.  After they sprayed the fire down, they were asked to pick up the fire log and put it back in our giant container.  Once all the fire was cleaned up, they returned to the fire engine and we drove back to the station to undress and retire for the day... and for us it was time to put on sun screen and head outside.  

It was SO much fun.  Everyone took this so seriously and had a ball with it!  I'm trying to think of what I would do differently next time or how I could top it.  I can't really think of anything.  I had so much fun with it as well.  The only thing I can think of would be to have it video taped for parents.  If we had invited parents it would have probably been a huge mess knowing these particular kids and recently have had put on a play where parents were invited.  Don't even get me started on the play... Maybe I'll post about that another time.

Questions for readers:  Have you ever been a part of an activity that you might have enjoyed slightly more than your children?  Any other fun fire safety related activities that are a big hit in preschool you'd like to share?

Today was good.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one.  -Dr. Seuss