WRITING ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH

Many, many years ago when I was doing a workshop there was a younger teacher sitting next to an older teacher.  The younger teacher said to her friend, "Tell Dr. Jean how you teach your kids handwriting.  Your kids are the best writers in the school."

The older teacher smiled and said, "We write round the mulberry bush."  She then went on to tell me how they practice making strokes for weeks before she teaches them how to form letters.  She demonstrated how they learn to go from top to bottom and left to write as they sing the song.  They do a different stroke for each verse.

Note!  I think a key to this is "purposeful practice for automaticity."  By repeating this every day children are able to master these basic strokes.

Now that I know the developmental stages for writing I've tweaked what she taught me a bit.  These are the stages according to most experts:

1st  vertical line

2nd  horizontal line

3rd  circle

4th  cross

5th  square

6th  diagonal

7th  X

8th  triangle

I would have the children draw and sing as they copy what I do on the board. 

Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.

Here we go round the mulberry bush so early in the morning.

(Pick up your pencil and place it at the top left corner.)

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Monday morning.  (Make vertical lines.)
(I explain how people used to scrub their clothes on a wash board.)

This is the way we iron our clothes...so early Tuesday morning.  (Make horizontal lines.)
(Some children don't know what an iron is, so this is a good chance to explain and demonstrate.)

This is the way we scrub the floor...so early Wednesday morning.  (Draw circles.)
(Explain when you scrub you go around in circles with the brush.)

This is the way we mend our clothes...so early Thursday morning.  (Make a cross.)
(Show a button that has been sewn on with a vertical and horizontal stitch.)

This is the way we sweep the floor...so early Friday morning.  (Diagonal lines.)

(Pretend to hold a broom and sweep in a diagonal fashion.)

This is the way we bake our bread...so early Saturday morning.  (Make X.)

(Pretend to hold a rolling pin and show how you move it from top to bottom in a slanted way.)

This is the way we smile and sing...so early Sunday morning.  (Draw a smiley.)