Handwriting and Keyboarding Through the Summer!

Megan Parker June 14, 2018 0

Summer is here! Now what? Between pool visits and backyard cookouts, make sure your kids continue to learn throughout the summer while having fun. Whether it’s building readiness skills, practicing keyboarding, or dipping their toes into cursive handwriting, kids need a little bit of structure to maintain what they learned last year. Be sure to check out our list of summer products to take with you for more activities. Let’s take a look at some ways to prevent the “summer slide” by keeping kids actively engaged during break:

Clock in Screen Time…Educationally!

Your kids will be asking for computer time during their free summer days, so why not take advantage of monitoring screen time and promote computer literacy skills with fun, game-based activities? Watch our Can Use at Home video to learn how teachers can authorize your kids to use Keyboarding Without Tears® at home over the summer. Your children will learn about cross-curricular subject matter as they type their way to digital success!

Make Cursive Count

Learning cursive doesn’t have to be intimidating! Give your kids a head start on cursive with fun, multisensory activities that teach letter connections. Try the following warm-up activity to prepare children for transitioning from print to cursive:

Sand Scooping

Prepare students for their first cursive connections by making big, swooping arm motions in the air. Have them pretend they are scooping sand on the beach.
As students pretend to scoop sand and put it in a pile, they'll learn how to mimic and change directions in a stroke.
Students put left hand out to the left side.
They make a scooping motion with their hand, as if they are scooping sand.
Have children put the “sand” on top of a pile.
The scooping motion (under curve) naturally changes into a piling motion (over curve) as children pretend to scoop and pile sand.

For visual learners, our Cursive Alphabet Desk Strips are a useful tool to get kids used to seeing connected letters. Have children decorate a designated space for learning. Displaying the cursive alphabet on the wall will make the letters familiar when kids head back to school in the fall. We have a lot of hands-on materials to make learning fun and easy throughout the year so be sure to check them all out.

By Megan Parker Megan Parker received her Bachelor of Science degree in English from Towson University. She has a background in writing for children that includes working in the editorial department at Girls’ Life magazine, where she wrote for the print magazine and website. She has versatile experience as a writer, editor, and copywriter, and her writing has been published in magazines and newspapers. When she’s not having fun creating imaginative content at Learning Without Tears, she loves to travel the world.