Free resources to use at Home (Handwriting and other stuffs)

Hi all,

I would like to share a site that seems really interesant to me :wink: . It has a lot of free resources to help your child to practice at home as Handwriting, Coloring and so on.

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/handwriting_practice.htm

I hope that it is useful for you.

Kind regards,
Gilma

Oh wow… that was helpful. Thanks a lot. BTW, what age can we start using these from? My son is 18 months and he scribbles a lot.

Thanks! There’s a lot of stuff in here! I’m looking forward to some time to poke around.

Great resource, thanks! :smiley:

Hi all,

I am really happy to hear that you find the site useful like me.

Regarding the age to use the forms, I have been looking for information in internet and they said that the babies can start at 12 or 13 months old, but I can imagine that like everything with babies, it depends and can be different depending of the baby.

I found an article (http://www.babycenter.com/0_toddler-milestone-writing-and-drawing_11744.bc) where they said:

When and how it develops
Your child’s early attempts at writing certainly won’t look much like words and sentences, but his scribbles, lines, and drawings are all helping him get ready to learn his ABCs — and perhaps someday produce the next great American novel.

Many children are able to grasp a crayon and shove it around on a piece of paper when they’re about 12 or 13 months old. Their writing and drawing skills improve in tiny incremental steps throughout the toddler years until they’re able to draw recognizable pictures and, eventually, put a few letters down on paper.

12 to 18 months
Over the last several months of his first year, your child’s fine motor skills improved steadily. Now he’s physically ready to grab hold of a crayon and start experimenting. At 12 or 13 months, some toddlers are already able to scribble vigorously, while others start tentatively (they’ll drag a crayon around on paper, scrawling inadvertently). If yours takes longer, that’s fine, too. Children develop at different rates, some faster than others. By around 16 months, your little one will probably be a scribbling pro, creating a gallery’s worth of drawings for the refrigerator.

19 to 25 months
Your toddler’s scribbles will start taking discernible shape now, though he doesn’t yet form letters and numbers — he can’t hold a writing implement steadily enough yet for that. But he’s become enthralled by anything he can draw with — crayons, pens, and colored pencils. Beware, this is prime time for crayon scribbles on the wall. And he’s probably starting to spend longer on each individual drawing now, covering more of the paper rather than making a single swirl. Draw a single line and he can easily imitate it, though it may not be very straight.

26 to 30 months
At about 29 or 30 months, your child moves from mere scribbles to true art; he’s more interested in coloring and painting, and he starts adding colors and trying to represent real objects and things. A drawing may look to you like a solid mass of green ink, but ask him and he’ll tell you it’s a snake in the jungle. He may also start attempting to incorporate language into his drawings; look closely at a painting and you may see that the larger scribbles are figures, while the chicken scratches are attempts at letters or words. He may also start signing his pictures, though the letters won’t look like any alphabet you recognize.

31 to 36 months
By the time he’s 2 and a half, your child will be able to hold a thick pencil or crayon solidly in a writing position. According to Nina Lief, a child development expert and co-author of The First Three Years of Life, children this age are usually able to master the up-and-down movement required to make a “V,” which is a little trickier and requires more dexterity than making a straight line. Between now and his third birthday your toddler will also start making circular strokes, and some will be able to write a few letters — or squiggles that look an awful lot like letters. A few will start writing their first name — or a few letters of it — around or just past their third birthday. Many don’t, though, and that’s okay. Don’t feel pressured to push your child to learn to write; wait until he’s really interested and excited about it. Writing is a developmental skill that does not have a formal timetable; your toddler can take his time and still be developmentally on track. Slow and steady may well win this race: A child who is just learning to write his letters in kindergarten may well have lovely penmanship by second grade.

What’s next
As preschoolers get more adept at using crayons and pencils, they’ll start making more elaborate and accurate drawings. Most will be able to write their first name before they enter kindergarten, especially if they’ve been learning the alphabet in daycare or preschool. Sometime before his fifth birthday, your child will learn to make horizontal lines, to copy a circle and a square, and to draw people (he’ll probably start with stick figures and add on curves as he gets better at it).

When to be concerned
All children are different, but if yours hasn’t started scribbling by the time he’s about 15 or 16 months old, bring it up the next time you see his pediatrician. Keep in mind, though, that premature babies may reach this and other milestones later than their peers.

I hope that this information can help you too.
Cheers
Gilma

Is anyone familiar or have used “Steps 4 Kids” DVDs? I’m not sure what age they’re tailored for, but I’d be interested to hear from someone who has used them.

Thanks for the free download links everyone!

Regarding the writing skills for 18month old, use big jumbo pencils and crayons, and if you can’t find any take an old knee stocking ball or the balls that come in the vending machines and punch a hole big enough for the pencil to fit into the ball, you will have to break the pencil or crayond to make it short. this device allows smaller children to advance onto the tripod hold of holding a pencil. also you can use model magic to mold the childs hands around the pencil for a comfortable grip. you can also purchase crayons from crayola that are specialty made for toddlers Kaboodles i think that is what they are called. For starting out writing you can use a dry erase board with large markers or use a plastic sheet protector over a worksheet and let them scribble away. also if you use a highlighter on the sheet protector covering the worksheet then the marker will not be all over everything else. Some dry erase markers are not washable.
What I did with my first son at 9 months old was I used the sheet protector with a white sheet of paper and a yellow highlighter, i made a dot on the left side of the paper to the right side horizontaly and then verticaly, i told him to start his motor at the left then go to the right to turn his motor off. i placed my hand over his to help him get going in the right path, then about 2 weeks went by doing that and he started to va-room on his own across the page.
Any worksheet will do for starting out writing that has the veritca lines, horizontal lines, and circle lines, etc on them or do what I did create your own. I made mine by using clipart and the dash key on the keyboard. I can send you mine via email if interested?