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Hi everyone. We're on unit 3 of LHFHG and are having a wonderful time. DS5 (he turned 5 in Nov) is very bright and doing well in everything--understands story time and history, memorizing the verses, learning to read, has excellent fine motor skills--can cut neatly with scissors and hammer nails (with supervision of course, lol) and do lacing and all sorts of other fine motor activities. But handwriting...well, it feels like pulling teeth--getting him to sit up in his chair (and hold still), holding the pencil right (over and over b/c he'll put it down after a letter or two and get distracted), writing the letters the right way, all the little details...we're having a bit of a hard time.

So, I guess my question is, how neat does early handwriting have to be. I mean, is it enough to just resemble the letter/number? Do I need to get him to make the letters the right size, touching the lines, or is it okay if the early ones are floating and crazy sloppy? If it is important to make them correct and neat from the start, any tips on how to do that? I really don't want handwriting to become a huge, dreaded discipline fight everyday... Thanks!

I had a hard time with this too. I would say that this early on you're okay. I reminded my daughter (she had just turned 5 when we started this summer) each day to do the best she could. We're at the end of the book now and her handwriting is SO much improved. At the same time I didn't make her rewrite letters when she started out, but now that I know what she is capable of if she starts getting sloppy she has to redo them. It is hard for this age to be still to get through an entire page! I would let my daughter do a line, get down and run a lap around the inside of the house or do jumping jacks, etc. and then get back to work on the page. It helped and eventually we didn't have to do that!

Yes, he does have trouble holding still for handwriting. Every other subject he can wiggle and sit funny, etc, but handwriting he's supposed to sit up and be still and neat. I like the idea of short breaks in between lines (and he liked the idea too, lol). And I think I'll put story time right after handwriting as a sort of reward for getting through his least fav. subject. He loves story time Thanks so much for your help!

Part of this could be personality too. My oldest will sit and work pretty much until she is done with everything, opting for no breaks. Crazy! She has always been the conformist of my girls. My middle girl is the wiggler...but I've learned to just let her be wiggly even during handwriting. She actually does a better job if she is moving a bit. I don't quite understand that, but I am just going with it!