Wet, Dry, Try

After children have mastered drawing circles at age three, they are ready to begin to work on forming straight lines.  At first these lines are wobbly and start at the bottom of the paper. But through development and practice, children can make strong, straight lines and they begin to remember to start their lines at the top.  

This becomes important for forming letters properly. (There is a song for this. Here is a slightly catchier version than what we have been singing in class.) 

On the slates, the children trace a line with a small sponge (wet) and then repeat with a tiny paper towel (dry) and finally form a line on their own with chalk (try).  Wet, Dry, Try is a very popular activity. Repetition like this offers deep practice.

We began with a big line down. "Start in the starting corner. Say hello to the smiley face."
We use the language of Handwriting Without Tears to narrate the process.
Next we tried a little line across. 

Then we tried a big curve. The children recognized this as a letter C. The big curve is more of a challenge as the chalk has to change direction while drawing. We ran our pointer finger over a wooden form and the letter card before beginning wet, dry, try. 

As we work on the slates during activity time, there are no new drawings on the students' clipboards. Some students began to ask about the letters of their name. 

Soon all the children will practice writing the first letters of their name, learning a proper handwriting form that will support fluent writing in the future. We look forward to opening mailboxes just in time for Valentine's Day.