We are BIG fans of The Good and the Beautiful handwriting workbooks. They are simple and pretty much entirely child led and teach beautiful handwriting. AND if your kiddos love coloring {mine are addicted} this will be a slam dunk for everyone involved!
What age should I start?
This course is super simple but I felt like it was perfect for preschool-aged children. I actually started Sarah on the Level K Handwriting Book at the beginning of this year and she was doing great with it. BUT then this was released and we decided to go back and do this one for the rest of the year.
It is designed for kiddos aged 2 1/2 – 5 years old. That’s a pretty big span but I think it is right on. It gets your kiddos working those tiny muscles and into mental focus mode. So whenever that feels right for your kiddo, this course is for you!
Course Sections
This course is divided into three different sections. Each one has a different focus or skill that they are concentrating on.
Section One: Continuous Motions
This section is all about curves, loops, waves, and spirals. This seems like such an instinctual thing for us big people but it is pretty tricky for little ones.
Section Two: Changing Directions
This section concentrates on straight lines, angles, and zigzags.
Section Three: Combining Shapes
The last section takes everything your little one has been working on and brings it all together. The focus is on hearts, stars, and letters.
Coloring
Each page has an opportunity to color. These are golden for my kids. They love coloring and this is kind of their reward after they practice their tracing/handwriting. The images are darling and focus on nature – beautiful.
Pencil Grip
This is something that is stressed at the beginning of the course in your parent directions. This is the beginnings of handwriting for your kiddos so it is important to take the time to show them how to grip the pencil correctly. My motto: start as you mean to go.
How much parent involvement is there?
This is honestly something that you could probably hand your child and they would be able to do it on their own. So this can be as hands on or off as you want it.
After Sarah and I were done with her preschool, she would get her handwriting and I would go over the next page in her book. This truly took about 15 seconds and then she just did it. This worked out great for us because then she just took however long she wanted on it. Somedays she would be really detailed in her coloring – others days it was more simple. But there wasn’t any timetable on it.
When she was done, she would show it to me. Sometimes there is a question or two at the top to prompt a discussion with your child. Again, these were simple and easy to do.
Physical Product vs. PDF
I am normally 100% physical product! It is worth the little extra money to have it come to me all ready to go and looking beautiful.
However, the handwriting courses I am a little bit more on the fence about. Our first year doing handwriting with Jacob, I just got the PDF, printed the pages, put it in a binder, and it was totally fine.
This course, especially, is in black and white and so it is a really simple one to print off at home. The other perk to having the PDF is that you can then reprint the pages if your kiddo attacks them with scissors (is that only us?) or if they simply need additional practice.
We have been getting the physical product just for ease, but I can definitely see the value in the PDF to give you the flexibility for added practice.
Final Thoughts
This is a wonderful, SIMPLE, course to start your littles on. It helps them to start to get control over their fine motor movements. AND this would be an amazing resource if you have littles and are wondering what to do with them while you teach your bigs! I’ve been there – and am still there. This helps to keep them occupied, makes them feel like a “big kid” too, and teaches them a little something, too!
We’ve also used The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level K, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. I haven’t done a formal review of Levels 1-3 because they have recently been updated and so I can’t give a review of the updates. Level K we also haven’t entirely finished and so I am waiting until we have gone through it cover to cover. But if you have any questions, I would love to help in any way I can! Leave them in the comments 😀
