Patriotic Penmanship Review

It's been 8 years since I had a kindergartner, and in that time I've been introduced to so much new curricula that I didn't have with my older children. I don't think my older children had curriculum specifically for handwriting so we were excited to try out Patriotic Penmanship Kindergarten (manuscript) from Laurelwood Books.

Laurelwood Books is a company that carries a variety of new and used curricula. The author of Patriotic Penmanship is a fellow homeschooling mom of 7 so she understands the needs of homeschoolers when it comes to curriculum. Patriotic Penmanship is a series of books spanning from Kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. The books start out in manuscript and eventually transition to cursive writing. There is even a specific transition book that helps teach writing in cursive. Olivia is 4 (but will be turning 5 next week). She has been writing her name and some words since she was 3 so I thought that introducing her to the Kindergarten level of Patriotic Penmanship would be a great start as we ease into Kindergarten this year. She enjoys learning to write so it was no problem getting her started on this book.

At the beginning of the book, the author gives some brief instructions on how to use the book. There are 24 lessons and she suggests using a lesson a week (the amount of pages in a lesson each week vary). Of course she said to tailor it to your child and do as much or as little as you choose. The next page goes on to show how to write each upper and lower case letter. The letters are all dotted for the child to trace. Each letter has numbers with arrows showing the sequence of how to write each stroke. From there, the lessons start out by introducing all the vowels. Each letter has a row of dotted letters for the child to trace then a blank row for the child to practice writing the letter on their own. The following lesson then introduces all the consonants in alphabetical order.

By now the child has wrote each letter individually. The lessons from here on out again introduce each consonant (again in alphabetical order), having the student write a line of upper and lower case. Then it goes on to blend the consonant with the different vowels, forming 2 letter sounds. After they trace and write those blends, the child goes on to write short words. So not only is the student learning to write letters, they are also learning letter blends and short words. This is repeated with each consonant letter.

The book ends with a blank page encouraging the student to write a note to a family member using some of the words they learned throughout the book. We averaged using the book 3 days a week during the review (since we are officially on summer break). I let Olivia decide each time how much she wanted to write. Some days she did a whole page, other time she just did 2 lines. This is such an easy handwriting book to help teach how to form each letter. I love that it's simple, no frills, and that it doesn't take much time to do. I also appreciate that I can customize it to my child by allowing them to complete what they want to each day. I don't want to ever frustrate them to the point they don't want to learn to write. This book is perfect to use for the course of a school year. I also enjoyed seeing the few Bible verses scattered throughout the book. We plan to continue to work on this book throughout her Kindergarten year this year.

Others on the review crew tried out other levels of their books so check them out as each grade does something different. We used the 7-8th grade level in the past which had the students copying famous quotes and scripture in cursive. Follow Laurelwood Books on Facebook.