finished zaner-bloser 4. now what?

[Noreen Claire]

DS9 is about to finish Zaner-Bloser grade 4 handwriting workbook. His cursive is pretty good when he has a model and takes his time. His cursive is no where near automatic yet - he doesn't even like that his spelling book (Spelling Work Out level D) gives the words is cursive. He needs more practice! 

Here are his options:

1. mom-made cursive practice. - I don't really have the bandwidth to come up with this right now.
2. complete another trip through ZB4. - I can buy another copy. We did the 2016 version. I can buy the same one, the 2012 version, or the new 2020 version.
3. work through a similar program. - I like the ZB cursive, but he could possible work through a simpler cursive. I'm not sure what that would be?
4.  something else - any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Noreen Claire
hit 'enter' before finished typing!

[Noreen Claire]

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

I just make my kids write it all in Cursive.  DD10 is in Level D also.  I make her write all those answers in cursive.  I also make her do all her other reading and writing i cursive.  The only exception is math and anything we are doing with our history like at the museums and stuff.  Like if we are doing a Junior Ranger booklet at a park, I would rather she think about the answers than work on her handwriting.  But everything else....Daily math (which is a simple set of math questions we do at the beginning of each school day, not the actual math lesson,)   spelling, reading, etc etc....I just make them do it all it cursive.  

This was my original plan but... it takes him so long and he whines. Ugh. I should probably just do this.

Spelling is his weakest subject, so I let him print his work in the workbook and when copying his words; I don;t know if I should force the cursive for that. 

[wendyroo]

Option 5, try to find interesting cursive practice that will engage him just enough that he strengthens his skills without too much whining.

I often find good options on Teachers Pay Teachers.  

This one is all jokes.

This one is interesting factoids from a range of subjects.

This one is positive affirmations.

This one is animal facts.

[Noreen Claire]

5 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

Option 5, try to find interesting cursive practice that will engage him just enough that he strengthens his skills without too much whining.

I often find good options on Teachers Pay Teachers.  

This one is all jokes.

This one is interesting factoids from a range of subjects.

This one is positive affirmations.

This one is animal facts.

Those are awesome! Thanks!

[Ellie]

3 hours ago, Noreen Claire said:

DS9 is about to finish Zaner-Bloser grade 4 handwriting workbook. His cursive is pretty good when he has a model and takes his time. His cursive is no where near automatic yet - he doesn't even like that his spelling book (Spelling Work Out level D) gives the words is cursive. He needs more practice! 

Here are his options:

1. mom-made cursive practice. - I don't really have the bandwidth to come up with this right now.
2. complete another trip through ZB4. - I can buy another copy. We did the 2016 version. I can buy the same one, the 2012 version, or the new 2020 version.
3. work through a similar program. - I like the ZB cursive, but he could possible work through a simpler cursive. I'm not sure what that would be?
4.  something else - any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

At this point, he should be doing everything in cursive--not cursive *practice,* but constant usage, in all subjects, all the time.

[CTVKath]

I've used the brand "Universal Handwriting" as a follow-up to the Zaner Bloser workbooks and liked it so far but we're only up to Grade 3. There were a couple of differences in manuscript and I'm not sure about cursive. For Grade 3 we've done the reverse - my daughter started and is almost finished with the Grade 3 Universal Handwriting book and she'll be doing the Zaner-Bloser Grade 3 workbook to finish out this year. I usually buy them at RainbowResource.

Here's a link the Grade 4 Universal Handwriting workbook if you want to see a sample. https://upub.net/universal-handwriting-grade-4-cursive

[CTVKath]

I almost forgot. Zaner Bloser makes something for the classroom called Practice Masters. It's designed for the teacher to copy for the class. Maybe you could get an older edition of the Grade 4 Practice Masters on eBay and have him just write on those. I see a couple of Grade 4 Practice Masters for about $5.40 listed right now.

[Lori D.]

16 hours ago, wendyroo said:

Option 5, try to find interesting cursive practice that will engage him just enough that he strengthens his skills without too much whining...

This one is all jokes.
This one is interesting factoids from a range of subjects.
This one is positive affirmations.
This one is animal facts.

Awesome resources, Wendyroo!

That was my strategy too -- engaging subject matter for cursive copywork practice removed/reduced whining, lol. When DSs were that age, I did homemade cursive practice from a "big book of kids' jokes", and a "big book of kids' limericks" -- went over very well with DSs. Interesting factoids would have been great, too. 🙂

[Noreen Claire]

On 1/14/2019 at 9:33 PM, happysmileylady said:

I just make my kids write it all in Cursive.  DD10 is in Level D also.  I make her write all those answers in cursive.  I also make her do all her other reading and writing i cursive.  The only exception is math and anything we are doing with our history like at the museums and stuff.  Like if we are doing a Junior Ranger booklet at a park, I would rather she think about the answers than work on her handwriting.  But everything else....Daily math (which is a simple set of math questions we do at the beginning of each school day, not the actual math lesson,)   spelling, reading, etc etc....I just make them do it all it cursive.  

So, I had him start writing his spelling work/words in cursive and, within a week, he was writing all of his work in cursive of his own free will. I did not expect that! His cursive has become much, much neater and more automatic almost overnight. Thanks again for your comments!

[carriede]

If fluency is an issue, here's a thing I came across... have him write the alphabet in one lower case string everyday, no model. He can write each letter individual without having to consider a whole word.