For Preschool teachers like yours truly, this site is undoubtedly HEAVEN SENT! Now you can have your children trace letters, numerals, words, phrases, and sentences anytime! All you need is a reliable internet connection and printer and voila! Instant Tracing worksheets at your own disposal!

Tracing is one of the activities that reinforce young learners’ fine motor abilities. Before they can be taught how to write letters and numerals freehand, it is best that you expose them to a variety of enjoyable and relevant tracing tasks…

I remember how Ate Mhel of BWS would painstakingly write the names of 96 or so Kinder students using broken lines so that they can trace them later on… For many years also, we have asked Jhoan to look for fonts that are in traceable form… Who would have guessed that a website actually exists for that purpose! What’s more, it is absolutely free! Teachers, I urge you to try this site for yourselves!!
http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/print-k/choose.htm
For us, the Early Years Teachers of Noblesse (… who are essentially starting everything from scratch … ), we are tremendously grateful for this site… of course, along with the other wonderful educational websites who serve as our valuable references as we start to pool our own resources…
Some useful guides, though, before you embark on your own worksheets production…
- Children who are 2 years of age, or those who are just starting to be familiar with pencils and other writing implements should be first exposed to activities such as scribbling, connecting dots, and tracing straight lines (in other words, don’t use this site, yet… ). Allow them to be comfortable with a pencil (preferably, the fat, tripod types) and do not set high expectations! Just as any, make this a fun and enjoyable bonding activity!
- As they progress, you can start introducing more challenging tracing activities, such as those involving curved or zigzag lines… The internet has TONS of materials that you can download for FREE!
- Tracing letters, numerals, and words can then be presented. You can also make it more fun by letting them trace the outlines of their favorite pictures, or use markers, colored pencils, and the like to make the activity more enticing to engage in…

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and try it! I already did….

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 am and is filed under Teaching Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.