Second Grade, Writing, Set Five

• We wrote a story about how the three little kittens lost their mittens.
• We drew pictures to go with our story (Writing Hangups, Yarn Yarn)
• We played What a Personality (Games for Writing)
• Planted Words; first I let K. make a plant with lots of crafty stuff, then she wrote about the plant. (Writing Hangups)
• Forbidden Letters; we couldn't use the letter 'K' when writing our story. (Games for Writing) Kids had to be children, liked became loved, park was changed to meadow, etc.
• To practice small muscle development/coordination
• I hid 28 googly eyes in playdoh for K. to find
• Three Color Road Race (Games for Writing)
• Obstacle Course (Games for Writing)
• How Many Words (Games for Writing) -- I made up a new list of words since we have gone through the list in the book about three times.

From Cursive Writing Made Easy and Fun:

• The Longest Word in the World -- write long words in cursive and have your child count how many times you lift your pencil. Then do the same thing with printing.
• Loopy Letters -- this activity has the child notice that certain letters have a loop pointing up (h, k, etc.) while other have a loop pointing down (p, y, etc.) and one has a loop pointing both directions (f). Then the child colors in the loops.
• Brush Off -- use newsprint, 1" wide foam brushes, and plenty of paint to practice the shapes in cursive letters.