Not just another handwriting book

Zaner-Bloser Handwriting recently contacted me about trying out their handwriting book for my first graders.
I've been teaching 18 years, 9 years in 1st grade and I've never had a "real" handwriting book / Curriculum for all of my students. Over the years I've had teacher's manuals or a freebies TPT. So, having the opportunity to use a real handwriting book for each of my students was not one I was going to pass up. I'm used to just teaching the letters and practicing 1 letter at a time. This book is set-up very differently and I see a big difference in my students desire to work on this book and their handwriting at this point in the year.

When I first handed the new handwriting books out, the first thing my class wanted to know was, could they keep them. They had not had a handwriting book before either. At the beginning, the students are shown how to position their book, and are given practice using pictures as well as handwriting lines.

Aside from the great quality and durability of the book, the teacher's manual has great tips and tricks in it as well. This book does not just include letters. It also includes, numbers, stroke direction, number sentences as you can see above. Another great feature in the books is the QR codes. You can scan the code on a page, and it will bring you or your students to further practice.

This students is a lefty. The book gave instructions for how lefties should position their books when writing. We are using this mid-year and my students are getting more and more independent. If I let them they would just want to fly through this book. They really enjoy doing the different activities provided. It's more than just letter writing.

So far, we have practiced writing all of the numbers and number sentences. Writing sentences for handwriting practice and completing sentence prompts. Also, we've practiced using question marks and exclamation points correctly in sentences. The students also practiced question words (who, what, when and where) along with the question marks.

My kids are so excited about doing their handwriting each day, writing sentences and practicing numbers. If you are in the market for a handwriting book, I highly recommend this one from Zaner-Bloser.