Cursive Resources

Did you know that the new Common Core standards don't include cursive handwriting? I really think it's a mistake. Cursive is a discipline and a skill and a beautiful form of art. One of my daughter's handwriting was quite ignored while in school (in fact, the teachers thought she had great handwriting!!) and I was always appalled at how she wrote her papers and what passed for good and legible handwriting. I remember, when I was in second and third grade, what pride I took in having the best cursive possible. :) A little peer pressure isn't always a bad thing. My friend and I were constantly trying to have the best handwriting possible and I think it spurred us to excellence. Not so anymore... kids are given an iPad to "practice" their cursive... does this even make sense to you? How can they practice without a pencil and paper???

Anyways, enough of my ranting... you can be sure that one of the goals I have for my children, is to improve their handwriting/cursive. Louisa is a little young to learn cursive but she REALLY wanted to and Kailyn was already starting to teach her, so I thought I had better show her the correct way before she took it upon herself to self-teach with cursive.

I was really surprised to find so many FREE cursive worksheets and teaching materials! In case you are interested, here are my top two resources that I use for printing off practice sheets:

Zaner Bloser font website (they have limited free access to their worksheets and the ads are pretty annoying but it's free and I can save them as pdfs for future use!)

Printable Cursive Handwriting - this site is pretty awesome. They have three different types of handwriting/cursive fonts and TONS of free printables that are in pdf form. I used their First Year of Cursive packets with Louisa and it has worked perfectly.

Another bonus I have found while typing up my own practice sheets is the girls get to copy Scripture! and poems! and fun, personalized things! I love that I get to customize this for them!