Handwriting without Tears?

[floiejo2]

What does everyone use? Do you have all the materials they sell or just a few? I'm wanting to get the "Letters and Numbers for Me" book. Do I need the teachers guide to go along with it? What about the wooden blocks? Do you have everything else, what is actually needed to do the program? We are on a very limited budget.

My dd knows all of her letters and is getting pretty good at writing them. What we need to work on is how to write in the lines and touch the top and bottom and writing numbers again, the correct way and "right" size within the lines.

TIA!

[Stugroupie]

We have the books, teachers manuals and wood pieces w/ mats. The wooden pieces were great when we were just starting out with letters and how to make them. The teachers manuals were a waste to me. I won't buy them again.

At the place where your daughter seems to be, the workbook should be enough and maybe some of their lined paper and/or draw and write notebook if you want her to do additonal writing. The workbooks are so straightforward that it is kind of hard to mess it up. HTH!

[floiejo2]

Thanks, I was wondering if the teacher's manual was necessary or if it was pretty self explanatory. Like I said, she knows her letters, we're just working on writing them the "right" way. I may get the wooden blocks and mat for my dd2 when she's ready. Any other opinions/input would be great, thanks!

[elizawill]

we have the student book & pencils. i also made the letter pieces out of cardstock (the template is in the student book), but we don't use them anymore. they were great for my son to have in the beginning though. i purchased flashcards as well, but we've never used them honestly. hth.

[dotnetdiva]

I succumbed and got everything. The only thing I really used was the student books. I am finding I like the lined paper for K/1 grades.

The time it took to learn and master capital letters went by in the blink of an eye and so I suggest making your own stuff (cardstock for the capital letter shapes, play-do, etc...)

[stacylsc]

We got the student book, manual, and CD our first year...we LOVE the CD...this year we just got the student book and the lined paper in the notebook form...it has a place to draw an illustration and then write below (my son loves to write stories...I write, he copies)...it was all we really needed...as someone said the books are straightforward so you need little else. I do like the CD, though...it helps with the making the letters the right way...when my children get a little "THAT WAY" about learning I put in the cD and they are sung "Where do we start our letters? AT THE TOP" and it puts an end to that battle!

[nov05mama]

I also agree with just really using the student manuals. I purchased the teacher's manuals at our local homeschool consignment store, and plan to cosign them again once I am done, but had I not found them at the shop, I would have skipped them completely. One bonus of having the manual(s) is that they give you access to the online site Click, where you can get additional pieces (like a printable version of the wood pieces, extra handwriting paper, etc) for free.
I printed the 'wood pieces' onto cardstock from the Click link and we already had a small chalkboard, so I just used it for the wet-dry-try method. At the point your daughter is at though, I don't think you really need any of those things. It was great for DS when he was first learning to write the letters, but if your DD is already writing them and just needs practice, they won't be of that much use for you.

[A Mom's Love]

We use Letters and Numbers for me with the teacher's manual. I tend to like the extra helps found in teachers manuals, especially since dd is a leftie. Didn't buy any of the extras though. dd hasn't seemed to need them, although we did make a lowercase b & d out of model magic in different colors, but that was more for reading an letter recognition. She didn't have trouble forming them correctly. dd has taken to the program really well. During her K year when she seemed ready for it, we went ahead & bought it & it's been a great match. We both love it!

[dotnetdiva]

What I noticed in the teacher's manuals is they are almost the same for those first books. If I had to do it again, I would have just bought the teacher's manual for Letters and Numbers For Me, which covers both capital and lowercase. I did not use them much, but if you're the type of person that doesn't want to miss out on anything (like me), you might want one teacher's manual. They have a few handy tips.

[Jennifer Z]

The teacher's manual was helpful to me because I have a learner with motor planning issues, so the details helped me. I don't think it is essential for most learners though. See if somebody in your local homeschool group has one you can flip through (or if you have a b&m store that sells them), that might be enough.