Mail to the Chief---National Handwriting Day

There are two events coming up which are combining into one cool event for students.

The presidential inauguration is Sunday, January 20 while National Handwriting Day is Wednesday, January 23. While you may not consider these two events to be of equal weight, when they are combined, you come up with...

Handwriting Without Tears developed Mail to the Chief. You use your best handwriting--not texting or typing--to write a letter to the incoming (this time returning) president to offer him advice.

Even if you do not agree with the president, the office is worthy of respect, and the Bible encourages us to "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way" (I Timothy 2:1-2). 

If you go to Mail to the Chief, you will see HWT has printable packets based on age or use your own own ideas. The only requirement is that it be handwritten. They request you mail it to them by January 15, 2013.


I did this with our church's homeschool group yesterday. I provided some pictures to color for the little ones, and the letter forms from HWT for the older ones.

First I read a couple of books. 
I read:

 and I read parts of 

It worked out really well.

Obviously, an Angry Gorilla

We wrote the letters. The variety of ability and topics were so fun. We had several hoping the president had a good Christmas, mentioning they would pray for him, and saying they enjoyed playing basketball, too. A couple mentioned his need for Jesus! Out of the mouths of babes!

The we reviewed some of the presidents using a game. I used Angry Gorilla. They loved Angry Gorilla and it really worked well for the age spanse

Come back later for more ideas about National Handwriting Day specifically.

Handwriting, Literature, and Art...Oh, My!

As a teacher, I have always loved combining subjects. It give more meaning to what is done and therefore, makes it more memorable.


Micki memorized a poem entitled "The Caterpillar." Obviously, we used the poem as a springboard for an art project.

What you don't see is that she also copied the poem and we glued it to the back of her artwork. I only had her do two lines of the poem at a time, so it wouldn't be overwhelming. It was really interesting because you could see her handwriting improve from the beginning to the end.

While I do use a penmanship curriculum to continue her skills, now that she knows how to write, I integrated copywork more and more. Eventually, I want it to be all copywork until I get ready to teach her cursive. Copywork is a very "classical" way of handwriting. Part of the concept is that you have them copy things not only to practice handwriting, but also to expose them to literature, principles, and English grammar. You gotta' love multi-tasking.