As children develop an awareness of letters, and the sounds they make, they also have to learn how to form letters smoothly and automatically, writing from the top of the letter to the bottom. This year our youngest children have enjoyed a variety of classes where they are given the chance to practice copying words and using invented spellings.

In Picture Stretch children pick a picture out of a bag. Using scissors they trim the picture and glue it in their books. Children then practice writing the first letter of the word, both in upper and lower case. Finally they stretch out the sounds of the word as best they can.

In Listening Center the children listen to a picture book on tape, and copy the title of the story in their books. If there is time they illustrate their favorite part of the story, and more recently they are being asked to write a sentence about the story.

In I Spy the children search for small objects hiding in a jar of rice and then make a list of the objects.

In Printing class the youngest children learned how to form capital letters. More recently they are working on lower case using multi-sensory materials such as squishy bags, colored salt buckets, cars driving on roads, and shaving cream.