Reddit reviews Print Uppercase and Lowercase Letters, Words, and Silly Phrases: Kindergarten and First Grade Writing Practice Workbook (Reproducible)

I have play doh mats. That's a lot of fun. I do textured letters and numbers. I have I Spy Activities (worksheets) for both. You can make activity bottles or exploring bags.

Work on tracing. I have a ton of tracing worksheets. If you can use iPads, there are some awesome apps that my students love. I give them a stylus and let them go. If you have a student who can't make a mark on a page, give them crayons and coloring sheets. Let them go. Use white glue to trace around basic shapes and have them learn to color in the lines. But start with tracing sheets. Work on grip. Talk to the OT about that.

Its baby steps. You can't learn to run before you can crawl. Hand me two pencils means nothing if you don't understand the concept of two. The steps I use with math are more and less, hand me more, identifying numbers 1-5, and then quantity 1-5. For reading, I start with the letters of their first name. At the same time I will also have activities where they have to find their name in a group of names. I have cubbies where the students have to put their folders every morning and they have to put their folders where their name is and I also do an attendance thing where they move a magnet of their name (I used paint cards from Home Depot and magnet tape and I use it in my opening, they have to choose their name from the group and move it up to show they are here today). Once I can get 50% on the letters of their name, I start with the rest of the alphabet. I start with matching capital to capital. Then lowercase to capital. At the same time I will do I spy sheets or discovery type things. For writing, I go with tracing first. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and cross shape first. Then curves, and circles. Once they mastered that, we move to letters of their first name. Once we get to 50% of that, we move to capital letters, then lowercase. This is the book I HIGHLY recommend for beginning writing. It is what I use. This would be your next step.

I would look into watching Leap Pad DVDs for a period after lunch. The videos are relatively inexpensive. Just watch 1 DVD after lunch.