July 14, 2006, Newsletter Issue #136: Seven Ways to Help with Handwriting

Tip of the Week

Kids aren't able to write well until they have developed good fine-motor skills. These skills improve easily with lots of practice, so it's important to encourage your child partake in activities that tax their fine-motor skill.

The following activities can help your young child develop the precision, balance, and hand-eye coordination that are needed to perform the fine-motor skills used in handwriting, so they can subsequently have success in home school language arts:

* Give your child clay or play-dough to play with to strengthen the major muscles used in handwriting
* Encourage her to play with Legos, miniature cars, small blocks, action figures, and other small toys
* Do puzzles with your child
* Provide creative art projects that involve using crayons, marking pens, scissors, and finger paints, as well as tearing paper
* Play games with your child that involve the handling of cards and small game pieces
* Ask your child to sort collections of loose coins into stacks of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters

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Thanks so much for reading the the Homeschool Tips Newsletter.

The new 2006-2007 Sonlight catalog is hot off the presses! In addition to new educational resources, we've also made some significant improvements to our curriculum, such as expanded flexibility in Reader choices for Levels K through 2.

The catalog also provides several articles with helpful homeschool tips. For example, check out the "Top Ten Goals" article (pp. 146-147) which can help you think through your personal philosophy when it comes to homeschooling. And "Why we use certain books that some homeschoolers won't touch" (pp. 144-145), that gets into some pretty important issues about the content of books. And you won’t want to miss “27 Reasons NOT to Buy Sonlight”—a perennial favorite (beginning on page 148).

To take a look at our catalog online go to:
https://www.sonlight.com/request-catalog.html?am=06catonln

To request a copy of the catalog go to:
https://www.sonlight.com/request-catalog.html?am=06catreq

Sincerely

Sarita Holzmann
President
Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.