Lettering for Kids (or Beginner Mamas!)

A few weeks ago I posted a little video on Instagram of my school-aged kids doing some lettering -- and was flooded with requests for tips and resources!

The truth is that I put some books on the shelf, suggested it for a free time activity, made the materials available, and invited them to play around or make fancy titles for their notebook work.

They took me up on the suggestion and came up with their own approach to easing into lettering with markers. It involved some steps I wouldn't have thought of including but that worked perfectly for beginners. Even my (very detail-oriented and careful) kindergartener has been able to dive in!

And this isn't just a girly activity; my boys are right at the table as well. I have some suggestions below of more boyish alphabets and resources.

All that to say: this isn't an exhaustive list by any means. I'm just breaking down the round-about way this "skill" has taken root in our home.

(Psst: mamas who are dying to learn lettering, this post is for you too! Consider this a quick-start guide for yourself, and your kids will be joining you at the table in no time.)

What You Need

Markers. 

For what I'm suggesting below, you don't necessarily need a brush tip marker because you are drawing in the downstrokes rather than creating them with the marker's brush. A nice set of washable Crayolas would be just fine!

My kids have been using Pitt brush pens because they like the size and the vibrant colors. The tips are nice and flexible but they're sturdy enough to stand up to kid use.

If you DO want a proper brush pen that's easy to use, we like the Tombows best. They're double-tipped, so you can use them for all kinds of lettering, brush or otherwise.

If you don't have double-tipped, it's nice to have some thin markers for flourishes and for smaller lettering. Staedtler's Triplus markers are lovely -- bright, smooth, very little bleeding -- and are a favorite for the older kids but are too thin for littles to use without breaking. The Pentel Paper Mate Flair pens (medium point is more durable for kids) or Sharpie ultra-fine tips are great options also.

Side note: in all of these cases, I have found it valuable to set some ground rules for marker use with children. Especially with these nicer markers, you're going to want to build good habits of using, capping, and putting away. We only use these at the table, and it's a 5yo+ activity here. I make using these a privilege that can be revoked.

Another note: if you use erasable pens a lot (like we do), those would work fine also. As would Gelly Roll pens -- we love those! You just have to watch out for smearing the gel ink when you're doing the faux calligraphy part.

(By the way, if you are going to add watercolor to decorate your piece, be sure to use waterproof markers! Many of these brands are waterproof, but a few are not.)

Paper.

These can all be used on regular printer paper. And the printer paper actually works best, because you are able to trace through it, which I mention below. We keep a paper underneath our work in case there is bleed-through.

Later, we moved onto watercolor cards and cardstock to be able to embellish with paints.

Sample Alphabets.

My kids started with these two books:

Lettering for Beginners is the one I'll be referencing. (You'll see some photos of the inside below as I describe the steps.) It doesn't provide much instruction at all. It's very bare bones. BUT it's great for the method I outline below, where you really are looking for words to copy. And it's cheap!  A great place to start for younger kids.

If you DO want thorough instruction, I really like Brush Pen Lettering. Very detailed with lots of great tips. It is more advanced and I probably would only use it with older students.

Like I describe below, at one point in this process, I gathered several different sample alphabets for my kids to use. You can Google lettering alphabets and find free printables. Pinterest is another good place to look. 

I also have a few old books on my shelf from when I was a kid that have boyish alphabets in them: The Calligraphy Book and The Lettering Book.  

Inside The Calligraphy Book:

Inside The Lettering Book:

I like The Lettering Book best because it has lots more sample fonts that the other. But as I said, I chose these because we already owned them. I'm guessing there are lots of books like this on the market right now as well!  Vincent has used these for many of his notebook headings and now Xavier is enjoying working from them too.

The Cruz Kids' Steps to Starting Lettering

1. Tracing words from book.

This step gave them practice using the markers and getting familiar with some general characteristics of calligraphy fonts: larger downstrokes, slimmer upstrokes. They got a sense of making each downstroke the same width for uniformity. They got to play around with flourishes and embellishments. They got the feeling of those swooping curves. Doing it this way, they get to jump right into making pretty things rather than practicing letter after letter, which I don't think my early elementary kids would have been as interested in doing. This they asked to do every afternoon.

Gianna's

2. Tracing words from printed page.

Once they had exhausted the pre-printed words in the book, they wanted to do words of their choice: their names, friends' names, favorite phrases, etc.

I found a few similar fonts free online, downloaded them, and showed them how to type what they wanted in that font and print to be the same size as the words they had been working with.  They then traced to their heart's delight. :)

3. Copying words.

Soon I noticed they weren't tracing any more -- they had gotten confident and were just using the model to copy the words. This allowed them to copy right into a notebook or onto thicker stationery paper (like for a penpal). Copying is easier than tracing once you get the hang of writing in this way and so is a natural progression.

Xavier's

4. Working with the full alphabet.

The book I mentioned above has a page of uppercase and lowercase letters, and soon they were using this page to practice writing the letters they wanted to learn. They made their own practice pages and had fun trying to make a "perfect c" and so on. I also printed out for them some alphabets from online to play around with too.

5. Using full alphabet to write words and phrases of choice.

They had learned how to join letters from the copywork they had done before, so now they were able to use the sample alphabets to build their own words and phrases rather than printing them first. Again, this is a timesaver, so it's a natural progression.

Cate's

6. Writing without looking at the alphabet model.

Once they figured out how to properly form the letters, they no longer needed the model in front of them and could write from their minds or from a book. This is the stage my kids are experimenting with right now.

Vincent's recent history notebook headings

Where to Go from Here?

There are many more steps toward lettering that are doable for kids:

Experiment with different alphabets -- an endless activity!
Learn about layouts and sketchnotaking.
Try different borders, flourishes, and other accompaniments.
Decorate monochrome work with watercolor.
Try different applications.

And for an older child:

Use brush markers, watercolor paintbrushes, or other brush lettering implements in their proper way: with full downstrokes rather than "filling in" the downstrokes later on. (This saves time and is the obvious next step when you have brush markers on hand.)
Transition to a fountain pen or calligraphy pen to do more traditional line work.

About that last option: a motivated student might enjoy jumping right into some practice worksheets. The Postman's Knock is a fantastic place to purchase calligraphy printables. She starts with a tracing approach, faux calligraphy -- kinda like I outlined above. Then she moves into how to use a calligraphy pen for the same effect. So her packages would be a good bridge for an interested student who is ready for real calligraphy. There are other sites like it as well.

~~~

This new interest in our home has sent me on a search for various calligraphy books that can be used with kids! I have several en route and will review them in a Part II this summer, once we have had a chance to try them out. I'll also be updating on what steps my kids decide to take next! My girls already finished their first comissioned piece -- some watercolored word art for Grandma's guest room. ;)

Do your kids enjoy lettering? Any favorite resources?

(Many of the links above are Amazon Affiliate links. That means I get a kickback from Amazon when you click over and shop -- without either of us doing anything special! :) Thanks for your support.)

The Living Page :: Copybooks

The second chapter of Laurie Bestvater's The Living Page can be broken roughly into three parts: nature journals, copybooks, and history notebooks.  Last week, we talked about nature journals, and today, I'm focusing on that second category: copybooks.

Copybooks for my children:

Most of the suggestions she makes here are for older children--notebooks for keeping snatches of music, lab research, Scripture passages.  I was wowed by the Music Notebook, inspired by the Fortitude Journal, and happy to see a Foreign Language Notebook, which I already keep for us (on Evernote).  But I was most interested in the books geared toward younger learners, and I'm going to highlight those here.

A copybook is essentially a housing place for copywork.  But in calling it copywork, I do not mean for it to seem mundane.  In fact, Miss Mason envisions it as quite an inspiring activity.  As Bestvater explains, the key factor in a copybook is that the Keeper has a connection to the passages selected: "Students would still be instructed by the slow copying of beautiful lines but, characteristic of Mason, the words would be the ones that spoke to their hearts, or at least be words with a context--coming from their readings." (28)

So the child progresses in penmanship from practicing strokes on a chalkboard; then to perhaps individual letters on lined paper; then to working through a sentence slowly, word by word.  And at that point, copybooks can be introduced.  Ms. Bestvater mentions several that might be suitable for this age, for example:

:: A Poetry Book, where the child keeps favorite lines or stanzas: "But a book of their own made up of their own chosen verses, should give them pleasure" (quoting Mason, 29).

:: A Motto Book of favorite literary selections, organized by theme, perhaps choosing one motto for each day of the year: "What an incentive to a good day it would be to read in the morning as a motto of our very own choice and selection" (29).

Our penmanship time currently is divided between printing and cursive.  For the former, my kids tell me what they'd like to use for copywork, and I print a Startwrite page for them with the passage at the top and blank lines underneath.  Once it's completed, it goes into their school pile, which gets sorted at the end of the school year.  For cursive, they're still working on letter formation.  (That photo above shows our currrent copywork layout.)

We'll be sticking to Startwrite pages for beginning cursive, but I think they would love to move on to something more "special" for their printing, and I have a stack of Bare Books that would be the perfect start for such a project.  My only concern is that the permanence of the copybook might create some difficulty.  I have been hesitant because my perfectionist daughter struggles to complete her copywork to her satisfaction (her writing is fine for her age).  The only way she gets through her penmanship calmly right now is by my constantly reminding her it is writing practice--she should try her best, but it isn't always going to be perfect because she's still learning.  If it were in a bound book, I can imagine the frustration that might ensue!  On the other hand, she is the one that is always finding little snatches of poems to fall in love with and repeat to herself for days afterward.  I'm sure she would adore the culling process and having her very own Poetry Book to keep.  So we may continue what we're doing for now and revisit the copybook for next year?  I'll be thinking on this.  (Suggestions welcomed!)

Copybooks for me:

I have already mentioned that I don't think a Nature Journal or Book of Centuries lend themselves to a digital approach, but I think various kinds of copybooks could, depending on how they're conceived of, organized, and managed.  I'm not sure Bestvater would agree, but I'm going to chat about it anyway. ;)

First, I'm going to split up these copybooks into a couple categories.  There are some that I think would quite easily lend themselves to a typed format: a Household Book, a Parent Year-Book, a Travel Diary, a Reading Log.  These are more practical in their purpose.  But she mentions a second category of notebook in which the process of copying is meant to have a meditative effect that is formative to the soul.  Those kinds of notebooks are a far more tenuous match for a digital approach.

I'm going to take the traditional Commonplace Book as an example.  The Commonplace is a collection of quotes culled by the Keeper from her reading and learning.  When working through this section, I looked for what Bestvater noted as the essential aspects of a Commonplace Book and whether an e-Commonplace could meet these standards.

So, from Bestvater's descriptions, we might say that a Commonplace Book should be:

:: Inspiring.  The main goal of a Commonplace is to inspire the learner, and a "habit of noticing passages" around a selected theme or virtue can be "deeply inspiring and formative" (31). Can we notice inspiring quotes through e-Keeping?  Yes, surely.

:: Freely chosen.  The Commonplace Book should always be a collection of what the Keeper wants to include.  To insist otherwise is in direct contradiction to the purpose of the book: "The possibilities for abuse in this idea are apparent; a teacher or parent identifying a character trait a child needs to 'fix' and assigning a notebook on the topic is an impertinent project" (32).  It's not enough that the subject matter is inspiring; it must also be chosen freely, or the effect falls flat no matter how objectively inspiring the content.  Certainly this requirement can be met no matter what the format.

:: Culled from learning.  Bestvater herself notes that Miss Mason's instructions for notebooks were not particularly regimented, "allowing copybook principles to be upheld with creativity and variety.  Mason feels that moral impetus has to come from an idea striking the child and that 'the culling' is the most important and personal feature of the activity." (29)  The ideas should be taken from the context of one's own learning but can take a variety of forms, depending on one's preference.  Might digital culling fall under this category?  I think so.

:: A faithful companion.  The Keeping of a Commonplace is meant to be constant and lifelong, "a daily posture of reception and response" (31).  She calls the Commonplace "a personalized notebook that crossed subjects and was meant to go with them everywhere as a dear companion and a record of their reading/learning" (33).  Can e-notebooks be a daily habit, no matter where or what age we are?  Yes.

:: A form of narration.  Part of a Commonplace's purpose is to remember what we have learned: "We never forget the book that we have made extracts from, and of which we have taken the trouble to write a short review" (33).  And as Bestvater notes, "The practice of noticing and narrating is again more important than the specific notebook chosen" (34).  Can we narrate digitally?  Oral, written, typed--all are sufficient styles of narration.

:: Meditative.  This is where Bestvater is most forceful: "As an idea is spiritual, it needs a place to intersect with the student's own spirit, in this case, in the slowly emerging text of the meditative copy work ... taking time to write by hand slows us down and allows the truth to seep in" (30).

And that's the stickler. :)  She definitely sees the writing process itself as essential to the Keeping of a Commonplace, which comes as no surprise since she hinted as much in the first chapter.  I'll be thinking more about this as we move through the rest of the book, and as a model to my children, I plan to start a physical Commonplace soon.  I'm wondering whether that experience will convince me of writing's meditative effects.  Right now, writing doesn't feel all that meditative to me, perhaps because I often have little hands grabbing at the page. ;)  But I'll be the first to admit that I could use a little "slowing down"!

What did you all think of this chapter?  I thought I might find the discussion of so many different kinds of notebooks to be overwhelming, but I found instead that it inspired me to think creatively and branch out in the kinds of Keeping I have been doing.

A New Week, A New Term!

We starting Term 2 here this morning.  I love a fresh start...

new copywork pages - printing and cursive

a few new books - those top two!

a new plan for map drills

new psalm, hymn, poem, folk song - these are rotated often, but we also start *all new* at the beginning of a term

a new composer and a new artist - guess who? :)

I find our term breaks and re-starts keep our year's plans from getting stale, so I love the injection of some changes at the start of each 12-week session.

I'm feeling under the weather and the baby seems to be conspiring against a smooth day, but I'm hoping for a lunchtime tea: gingerbread with cream cheese frosting is ready, and in addition to our usual music selections, we'll be listening to "Christus Vincit" and "To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King" this week in preparation for next Sunday's traditional feast of Christ the King.  I have a feeling we'll be singing one or the other at Mass that day, and the kids always like to be ready to join in. :)

More soon on our exams and our week at the beach!