How To Boost Handwriting Skills In Kids: 20 Creative Activities

I am so happy to bring to you a guest post by Heather Greutman, a fellow occupational therapy practitioner and blogger over at Growing Hands On Kids. Heather is going to share with you 20 creative ways to boost handwriting skills in children tailored by grade level. You are going to love these fun and engaging OT handwriting activities. Enjoy!

Welcome Heather!

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Thank you Kerry for inviting me to share with your audience today. My name is Heather and I’m a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant over at Growing Hands-On Kids. You can find out more about my website below.

Handwriting Importance

Handwriting is an essential skill for all kids. But oftentimes, many struggle with this. Handwriting is complex and there could be a variety of reasons why a child is struggling with it.

As Occupational Therapy Practitioners, we are often asked to address handwriting concerns for school-age children. Handwriting is a very important part of academics and many children struggle with this skill.

While each child’s struggles in handwriting may be for a different reason, there are some basic ways you can help all children improve their handwriting. It all begins with the basics; addressing fine motor strength and endurance.

Today I want to share some fun and engaging ideas for handwriting practice with elementary age students. Yes, we’ve all seen the cute ideas for kindergarten practice, but as kids get older, it’s important to find activities that challenge them, and that they find fun.

It is important for elementary age students to do basic handwriting copying focusing on letter formation, size, accuracy, and increasing their writing speed. These activities I am sharing are a great way to warm them up for formal handwriting practice.

Handwriting Activities Grades 1-2: Foundational Skills

Most children are learning how to write in Kindergarten. Whether or not you agree with this developmentally is another thing. For the sake of this post, we are going to assume a child has gone through Kindergarten and is learning basic letter formations.

Before moving on in letter formations, a child should know all their basic pre-writing lines and shapes and be able to copy them, other than an X shape. This shape is still developing by age 6.

To find out about the basic development of pre-writing lines, you can read my post with a pre-writing lines checklist.

After Kindergarten, the focus should be on continued basic letter formation, improving fine motor development, and learning through engaging the senses. Hands-on activities are crucial at this age.

You will see in the activity ideas below, that the focus is on learning all these skills through hands-on play and exploration.

#1: Playdough Letters

Use play dough (either store bought or homemade) to roll out lines and shapes to form letters of the alphabet. Rolling the play dough helps to build strength in the fingers and hand for fine motor and handwriting skills. You can also use the play dough letters to form words for spelling practice.

#2: Rainbow Writing

This can be done on a vertical surface such as a chalkboard or on the table top. Have the children pick out all 6 colors of the rainbow with either crayons, colored pencils, or chalk. Then have them trace over each letter or word with each color of the rainbow.

#3: Salt Tray Tracing

Write letters in a tray of salt or sand with fingers or a paintbrush.

#4: Air Writing / Sky Writing

Use big arm movements to “write” letters in the air for muscle memory. I have a printable for this with numbers that you can find on my site here.

#5: Write The Room

Provide a clipboard, paper, and pencil and walk around the classroom or a room in your home searching for and copying words. You can label items with post it notes, write spelling words on the post it notes and hide them, or ask the child to find objects based on certain colors or themes and write the words on their paper.

#6: Clothespin Word Match

Match words or letters using clothespins to strengthen hand muscles. This is particularly helpful for strengthening a pincer grasp, which is needed for grasp patterns.

#7: Dot-oT-Dot Letters

Connect the dots to form uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, spelling words, or even pre-writing lines for younger children.

#8: Invisible Ink Writing

Write with white crayon and reveal with watercolor for a magical twist on handwriting. You can use cardstock to help prevent the paper tearing, or use watercolor paper.

Handwriting Activities Grades 3-4: Improved Form And Speed

In grades 3 and 4, we want to start looking for letter formation consistency, as well as longer writing with good size, spacing, and line orientation on the paper.

Children at this age may start being hesitant with writing, so it is important to find ways to make it meaningful, functional, and fun for them.

#9: Comic Strip Creation

Draw and write simple dialogue in comic strips for a creative handwriting challenge. You can provide strips of paper or use post it notes for them to write on and place inside a notebook. They can also draw the pictures to go with each strip or post-it note to include in their journal.

#10: Sentence Scrambles

Rearrange jumbled words to form complete sentences and rewrite them neatly. You can also do this for spelling words.

#11: Daily Journal Prompts

Respond to fun, simple prompts to practice writing complete thoughts.

#12: Postcard Writing

This feels like a lost art, but writing a pretend or real postcard to a friend can help with practicing sentence structure and spacing. Add writing lines to the postcard for children who need a visual of where to put the words.

#13: Copy Work With A Cursive Option

Cursive is coming back and it is an important skill to have! Choose short quotes, poems, or facts to copy in cursive. You can have the child use print if they have not learned cursive yet. My daughter’s school has them write morning poetry verses in cursive as part of their morning work.

#14: Silly Sentence Generator

Use random words to build and write funny sentences with correct punctuation. Mad-libs are also a great option to create funny stories or sentences.

Handwriting Activities Grades 5-6: Encouraging Hesitant Writers

With older children, we start to focus on writing endurance and legibility as well as developing their personal voice in their writing.

It is still important to keep writing practice practical, fun, and as engaging as possible.

Also incorporate cursive writing where you can.

#15: Letter To Future Self

Write a letter to be opened in the future. Have your child set a date for when the letter should be opened. You can also provide some open-ended questions as prompts to get them started. Examples could be, “What has been your favorite memory growing up?”, “What would you tell yourself in 10 years?” etc.

#16: Secret Spy Code Writing

Create and decode secret messages using a simple cipher, then rewrite them neatly. You can create a legend where each letter is represented by a unique shape or icon (use emojis), write a message backwards or in mirror image form, or replace letters with numbers. Students decode the numbers into words, then rewrite the message in neat handwriting.

#17: Handwriting Scavenger Hunt

Follow written clues and write the answers during a room or outdoor scavenger hunt.

#18: Opinion Paragraphs

Practice persuasive writing with clear handwriting on fun topics like “Best Pet Ever.” My daughter’s 5th and 6th grade class did this recently. They included an opening statement, two supporting facts, and a closing argument with their opinion.

#19: Research & Report (Mini)

Write 3–5 facts about a favorite animal, place, or person, focusing on neatness. You can also provide a paper for them to write notes on to help them collect their facts. Then write out their “report” focusing on neatness and proper punctuation/grammar.

#20: Fancy Script Invitations

Design and write invitations (real or pretend) using best handwriting and layout. Allow them to be creative with how they form their letters using “fancy” formations. My daughter enjoys doing this inside her journal also.

Conclusion

With these fun additions, handwriting doesn’t have to be boring or monotonous for your students. These creative ways to practice handwriting will help keep your students engaged while helping to build the foundational skills they need.

Bio: Heather and Growing Hands On Kids

Heather Greutman is the owner of Growing Hands-On Kids, LLC and provides educational content for therapists, educators, and parents. She uses her background as Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant with school-based experience to share child development tips, tools, and strategies. She is the co-author of Sensory Processing Explained: A Handbook for Parents and Educators along with other self-published books including Basics of Fine Motor Skills. You can find Heather at www.growinghandsonkids.com.