Pencils

I absolutely love the fact that my school supply bins are completely full!  My class did a great job bringing school supplies this year. Everyone brought everything on the list!  :) I have hundreds of unsharpened pencils!  Fortunately, fifteen families volunteered to be pencil sharpening families!  I send home a bag of pencils on Friday and they come back on Monday sharpened. I cannot express how much I appreciate this!  My pencil sharpening families save me so much time during the school week.

The sharpened pencils have been getting lots of use while learning to write letters. The reading series introduces two letters a day while Jolly Phonics introduces a letter a day. Fifteen minutes of our day is dedicated to handwriting. We have been practicing the letters we learn in Jolly Phonics in addition to writing our names.  We use D'Nealian manuscript in my school district. I found this website to create custom handwriting sheets for the students. It's wonderful- just type their name and print! Instant worksheets!  (It also had print and cursive options, too!)


My class has been working hard on holding their pencils the right way. I love this little saying my teaching partner shared with me:

Several kiddos use pencil grips. The occupation therapist has her students use this big pencil grip. I like it because it puts their hand in the right position.

I also have a student using a big pencil. The increased pencil width really helped with his grip!