Finding a way to teach Jonathan about crocodiles was rather a challenge. Frankly, crocodiles aren't very nice reptiles.
Jonathan colored a crocodile while I read some facts to him. (Side note: I had a hard time finding a simple fact sheet this time - there are too many types of crocodile and a lot of the information I found was conflicting.) We settled on this one because I didn't want to spend any more time looking.
Then he practiced writing "C" for "crocodile". I am loving these alphabet sheets, and am leaning more and more toward teaching D'Nealian handwriting instead of standard block printing. On my reading agenda for tonight: "D'Nealian Handwriting versus Circle-Stick Print" by Donald Thurber. I'm curious to see what he has to say. And in the interest of getting both sides, can anyone recommend a good defense of block printing?
We did a crocodile jigsaw puzzle together and then Jonathan played Five Hungry Crocodiles. While he did that I gathered a clothespin, some wiggle eyes, and green paper. And we made a crocodile of our very own! (Every now and then I have a surprising burst of creativity.) :) I think he turned out kind of cute.
5 comments:
Very cute!
BTW, I haven't seen much in the way of a defense of block printing. Handwriting is one area where I'm not so happy with how things have gone. We did a standard block printing at first, then tried an italic print stye in K which was not a success at all. We started cursive this spring (using a great workbook series A Reason for Handwriting - http://www.areasonfor.com/article.php?id=19) and that finally is clicking well. Right now Emma has very nice cursive writing (although she's still rather slow) and somewhat iffy block printing (which is slow too). In 2nd grade I'm going to make cursive mandatory.
I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with Gregory - you'll have to post more about what you decide to do!
You need to bring him out to Houston to learn about A is for Alligator. =)
My family used the "Italic" books (which I'm sure are D'Nealian after reading your links). One thing they also emphasize is getting rid of the "loops" in standard cursive, which is intended to make everything more legible.
I can't really have an opinion on whether the D'Nealian approach makes the transition from print to cursive easier, though. I first tried to teach myself to write (a spectacular failure at four), then learned standard block printing, then standard loopy cursive, and was finally introduced to D'Nealian. :-) It does make really pretty calligraphy, though!
Just don't tell him about Gustave: http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2005/03/gustave-crocodile/michael-mcrae-text
You're such a good mom!
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