HWT kindergarten - what do I need?

[mindygz]

I can't seem to figure out what I would need to get to do HWT with my K'er in the fall. Can anyone spell it out for me?

 

Thanks!

[Desert Strawberry]

There are lots of accessories available, but I did it on the cheap with the Letters and Numbers For Me workbook, the Stamp and See Screen

http://shopping.hwtears.com/product/SAS/handwriting

And some handwritten letters on index cards with play dough.

[~Victoria~]

I mostly used the wood pieces, letter cards, and the workbook. If I had it to do over again I don't think I would have gotten the tm. I also bought the chalkboard but hardly used it.

[Jess4879]

We only used the workbook.  The other stuff is optional and completely unnecessary, IMO.  Maybe if I had a child who really struggled, I'd make use of the extras?  I'm not sure.  The TM has a little blurb at the front about posture and such, which I'm sure you could find free online.  Otherwise, it's pointless.  My oldest liked HWT, but honestly, the only catch phrase we used was "where do you start your letters?  At the top!"  which the kids LOVE hollaring out!  I found all the extras to be overkill for something that should be very straight forward. 

 

My middle kiddo hates the lines in HWT, so we dropped it.  I'm not sure what we'll use for my son...

[SeaConquest]

The orange workbook was the only thing we used and it worked great for us.

[craftyerin]

I used a bunch of the components with the PK book when we did it last year (wood letter pieces and cards, etc), but with the K book this year, we've just used the workbook, the chalk boards, and the Letter School app on my iPhone. Typical daily instruction looks like this:  

 

turn to appropriate workbook page, look at letter formation demonstrated at the top and discuss

finger trace a few times

do the letter on the chalkboard and/or app to practice

have kid tell me correct formation as they finger trace one more time at the top of workbook page

kid does the workbook page

have kid show me which letter the think they wrote the "prettiest" and circle it

get a sticker and move on

 

 

[Meghann]

We bought the little chalkboard, little chalk, little sponges, workbook, teachers guide, big lined chalkboard, and lined paper strips.

 

Were I to do it again, I'd go with the little chalkboard (you can use regular chalk and cut up a sponge), as I really like the wet, dry, try meathod, and the student workbook. The rest is unnecessary.

[KSinNS]

If your kid know his letters, you don't need the wooden pieces and mat. They can be really helpful for a kid who is having trouble with learning letters. I love the chalk boards-I use both the double lined one and the little square one daily. Just buy your own chalk and cut up sponges for wet-dry-try (works like a darn). The orange book is obviously a necessity. I found the kindergarten TM very helpful for working on pencil grips and solving problems (wet-dry-try etc) but if your kid is already printing, you may not need any of that. Oh, and don't buy their pencils-get golf pencils from your favourite store. After the orange book the TM is less helpful unless you are having problems. Oh, and I use their paper for writing-you just need the wide lined for that age. Again, if your kid isn't having trouble, you may not need any of that. It just depends. 

[SevenDaisies]

I loved all the extras for PK. They are nice, but not necessary for K, although we use the slate boards through kindergarten and the double line chalk board into cursive.

[mindygz]

Thanks for all the input! He knows all it at least most of his letter shapes, but his pencil grip needs work and he just needs practice to improve. So I'm thinking the Orange book, chalkboards, and maybe TM? And get chalk, pencils and sponge elsewhere.

[mindygz]

(Edited to delete duplicate.)

[Aurelia]

We used the workbook and chalkboard (which you can probably get cheaper at Wal-Mart), and made my own chalk pieces by breaking some of the chalk we already had. We had a couple of those little pencils from IKEA, though you could just as easily break and sharpen regular ones. I bought the TM, wood pieces and cards but didn't use any of them. 

[Aurelia]

dp

[73349]

We already had a chalkboard easel, and I also found a little tray with salt useful for practicing the letters before writing in the book itself. The book was all I bought from them.

[SereneHome]

There are lots of accessories available, but I did it on the cheap with the Letters and Numbers For Me workbook, the Stamp and See Screen

http://shopping.hwtears.com/product/SAS/handwriting

And some handwritten letters on index cards with play dough.

 

I was even more cheap than that - just used Letters and Numbers for me workbook and that's it.

 

But I am probably the wrong person to ask bc I really never thought that a kid needs all kinds of props in learning how to write.

 

I could be wrong, I've been wrong before :lol:

[ThursdayNext]

We used the workbook and the little chalkboard/ slate. I really only needed the workbook, but the slate was cheap, and I knew my daughter would use it for other things when handwriting was done. We used our own chalk and pieces of sponge.

 

Edited to add: we also had a container of red lentils for sensory letter tracing at the end of a reading lesson. And there is no way we needed the teachers manual for HWOT k. It's a really easy method.