Keep Handwriting Fun with Correct Letter Placement!
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| Understand the letters and where they live in the house. Adults, babies, teenagers, and pets! |
Does your child need help with correct letter placement? Maybe his handwriting is all over the place? You’ll love this simple tip for better handwriting!
How To Use A Handwriting House for Correct Letter Placement
Introduce The Handwriting House
Start by explaining the handwriting house and who can live there.
This house has an upstairs, a downstairs, a basement and an attic. No one likes to go in the attic because it’s all filled with cobwebs. The basement is unfinished and really only the pets like to go down there because they have tails.
Make your house look like this:
Brainstorm that the adults in the house go upstairs and downstairs (all capital letters: A,B,C,D)
Brainstorm the babies that might live on the first floor. (lowercase letters: a,c,e,m,n,o,r,s,u,w,x,z)
Brainstorm the teenagers that can go upstairs and downstairs, but they are not fully grown like the adults. (b,d,f,h,k,l,t)
Brainstorm that the pets that have tails and like to go in the basement (g,j,p,q,y)
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Once you have it all figured out – it’s time for a fun story. Tell them it will be very scary! Hee! Hee!
Now For A Spooky Handwriting House Story
There was once an abandoned house and everyone was scared of it! The trees were huge, the bushes were overgrown, the shutters were falling off, the windows were broken. It was a mess! No one ever wanted to go near the house.
One day a family came to look at it and they said, “This house has promise. This house could be great!”
So the man moved in to start work on the house. His name was Steve. Write a capital letter S.
He didn’t want to be alone, so he also brought a pet dog with him. Write a lowercase p.
Steve worked hard on his house, he fixed the roof, mended the fence, painted, put in new light bulbs, threw out the trash, and cut down the huge bushes. He told his family that it was time to move in!
The family had two twin babies. Write two lower case o’s – o o .
The house became so busy with the twin babies, that they decided to hire a teenager to come in and help them sometimes. Write a k.
Finally, life was back to normal in the house and everyone was happy. So, the parents decided to add one more pet to their house… a black cat named…. Write the letter y. SPOOKY!
I love this story for so many reasons, but the best part about it is that it speaks to kids! They relate to the pets and babies. You can easily say, “Keep the adults upstairs and downstairs.” or “Only the pets want to go in the basement.” when you’re writing. It’s a fun way to keep your kids on track without nagging!
There is a great printable of a house here on What the Teacher Wants.
Note from Busy Kids Happy Mom – I’m not sure where this story or portions of it originated. I have used it or some variation of it for a long time. If you come across the original one, let me know!
Post First Published: Oct 24, 2011
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Hello
Just popping over from Adventures at Home. Love this idea for letter proportions. My daughter came up with one about animals sitting on a branch – some with tails (hanging down) and some with arms and wings in the air – but the house, with a story, is great! I’ll try it out for sure! x
Thanks for stopping by Julia! I love the way your daughter explains it too! I love how they all sit on a branch!
This comes from Stevenson Language Systems, Cursive Writing Program.