Week 12: Learning Handwriting by Coloring

Did you know that coloring is an important stepping stone to handwriting? It helps kids practice a bunch of important skills they need as they are learning to write.

Holding a writing utensil. Simply holding a crayon, or marker, or pencil helps your child get used to how it feels to hold a writing utensil, and over time they will learn to improve their grip.
Hand strength. Writing uses a bunch of muscles in the hand, and kids hands can get tired when they do a lot of writing. Like any muscles, hand muscles need exercise to get stronger, and coloring is a great (and fun) way to do that!
Fine motor skills. Not only do those muscles need to be strong, but it takes practice for kids to be able to fully control all of those fine muscles.
Hand-eye coordination. Learning to color inside the lines gives kids a ton of practice with their hand-eye coordination so they can make the precise, small motions needed to write well.
Focus. Sitting down with a coloring page helps kids practice the concentration they need as they begin writing.
Creativity. Creativity may not be a skill needed for handwriting, but it is for writing! Give your child some coloring sheets and let them explore, dream, and create freely.

And the best news is that The Trip Clip has over 500 coloring images to choose from to help your child on their road to handwriting!

Beginners:

There are simple images with thick lines for very young children:

Intermediate:

The mid-range images will take a little more coordination.

Advanced:

And the advanced images are fun for older kids!

Make a Coloring Book!

And one of the very cool things about The Trip Clip is that you can easily make your own themed coloring book. The coloring images are sorted into a categories, and the Workbooks feature makes it easy to print a coloring book with just images that interest your child.

If animals are their thing, you can print an Animal Coloring Book: