Creating your own cursive worksheets is super simple to do and has been a great solution for where we are currently at with cursive practice. Having worked through some cursive workbooks we are entering the delicate balance of “hey I got this!” to “I need a little more practice.” At 9 and 10 (year 4 and year 5 of Ambleside Online) my boys have been doing cursive for two years now – mostly because it was a great fit for my younger son and my older one wanted to do it, too. We have worked our way through a couple of books and the younger one told me he thought he could handle cursive on his own now, without referencing a book. The older one had asked me to find another book for him to copy from because he doesn’t quite feel ready to branch out on his own.
That basically embodies one of the beauties of homeschooling for me – they can move at their own pace in the unique areas they have been gifted in and in the areas that are a bigger struggle for them. We are seeking to equip and strengthen their weaknesses and encourage them in their strengths – not just pass them through.
My younger son has done just fine choosing his own sentence to write each day. We aren’t talking award winning, but he works hard and takes pride in it and is doing well.
In researching another cursive book for my oldest I finally settled on making them myself – that way we could focus on the letters that he is struggling with, boost his confidence, and make it fun by giving him sentences that would make him smile.
Creating Your Own Cursive Worksheets – Coming up with the Copywork
While beautiful lines from classical literature, poetry and the scripture are excellent pieces to use for cursive copywork, I can’t help but feel a bit of personality and fun is important, too. Creating your own cursive worksheets allows for a bit of fun and personalization!
So this week I had my son copy out;
“I love getting out of bed when it is my bedtime.
I love to eat all of mommy’s food.
Someone once told my mommy that her hair looked like spaghetti.
That makes me hungry. I like spaghetti.”
True story on the spaghetti hair. I had never told him that story before (it was a deranged old man!) and it got a good laugh out of him.
Yes, we will continue to focus primarily on the beautiful passages to be found in the classics but I will definitely be working in more stories from my childhood or funny antics about him or his brother because it brings us all joy. I documented a lot of their childhood funnies and those are going to make regular appearances in the copywork sheets I will be making him.
I have also considered that he could type up his own cursive copywork sheets which would give him his typing practice AND exposure to the text more than just the one time when he copies it for cursive.
I have been blown away at how narration has helped spelling and I need to share about that soon because I think this feeds into better spelling, too.
If you are looking at creating your own cursive worksheets I thought I would share the alphabet I typed out so you can just copy and paste it and not have to waste a few precious moments of your day typing it out yourself! I add this to the top of each sheet for him.
A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
There are many free places to create your own customized cursive worksheets. We settled on WorkSheet Works, they offer cursive, tracing, pre-cursive and regular font on lined paper. If you have a better, or preferred, place that you use please share!
