The past two years I have been teaching microschool preschool out of my home with 5-6 students aged 2.5-5. We meet Monday-Thursday from 9am-12pm. During that time we incorporate academic content, foundational skills, practical life skills, social emotional learning, play time, snack, and project based learning. Our daily schedule is a mix of when their brain is most active and ready to learn, the flow throughout our space, when they need movement breaks, and through trial and error, what works best for the students. We started out with a completely different schedule our first week together, but after testing out new combinations, found the schedule that worked best for us!

Handwriting, just like all skills, is not something you can just jump in and start doing. You have to lay a foundation of skills, practice those skills, then try the big work (letter writing), and then practice that work. There’s a developmental sequence to the way we learn to write letters, and there are correct pathways for each letter, uppercase and lowercase, as well as the digits 0-9. Oftentimes these writing workbooks we find at the store or online are great practice. But they aren’t what we want to use to introduce and teach the skill. So, if you have those workbooks, tuck them away for a bit. Don’t toss them, they will have their time to shine, but not just yet. Instead we are going to print out the Handwriting Pathways resource and walk through each letter, step-by-step. We are going to learn the correct pathway, we are going to do ample scaffolded practice, and then, when we are feeling confident, we will practice our skills in those workbooks to build our fluency!

Oftentimes when we think of handwriting instruction we think of grabbing a workbook and starting on page one. Page one usually is Aa. But that is actually not where to start when teaching kids to write their letters and numbers. In fact, you don’t even need those workbooks for quite a while, you aren’t even going to start with letters or numbers. So then, where do we start? Let me tell you.

There are 5 common pencil grips that children will move through on their way to one of the two most common traditional grips. The pencil grips you see below your child will move through in their own time. Some may be skipped, and sometimes when you think they have moved past one they will return back to it, but do not fret, this is common and expected. The most important thing you can do for your child as they work through these grips over the years (yes, years), is give them time. Time to explore, time to try new writing utensils, time to feel confident and then try something new. Rushing or forcing a grip is going to result in the non traditional grips that I described previously, and these hinder a child’s writing fluency. It is also important to note that a child will switch hands when developing their pencil grip. Hand dominance is typically established from 3-6 years old, a wide spread of years, so allow your child to explore using both hands as they will also settle into their dominant hand in their own time.

Listen, I don’t know about you, but Halloween is the best day of the year if you are a 3-6 year old. And once the day is done, talks of “next Halloween” last for the next 364 days. So, for the month of October (I’m a firm believer of giving every month their time to shine and holding out until that month to celebrate) I lean into my students’ love for all things Halloween, and we read all the best Halloween books every day! So here's a list I have compiled of all our very favorites as voted on by me and the amount of engagement from my students.

School supply lists can get long. Pencils, crayons, glue, markers, the list goes on. But what are truly the unsung heroes in the early childhood classroom? Here are my top 10 favorite teaching tools that may or may not be on the traditional school supply list, but are used daily just like those pencils!