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You are here: Home / Craft / diy alphabet lacing cards :: help your child learn to write

diy alphabet lacing cards :: help your child learn to write

February 16, 2013 By Katie 16 Comments

how to teach my child to write

my oldest child is in preschool this year and watching him progress has been so much fun! he’s always loved numbers and letters. so when he started to practice writing, he was very excited to see that he could make those same letters and numbers he sees every day! he’s learning the proper ways to write them – slants, hooks, etc. – as well as which part of the letter gets written first, and in which direction he should write each component of the letter. to capitalize on his excitement and because he’s just having so much fun learning how to write, i made him a bunch of alphabet lacing cards that we can take with us in the car, to church, or even to play with at home.

anyone who subscribes to my blog (top right corner in the sidebar…nudge, nudge, wink, wink ;)) would know that in many of my other projects i substitute chip board with cereal boxes. you can see those projects here, here, & here. it’s obviously much cheaper (since it’s free!) and it’s being resourceful, so why not?! empty cereal boxes work just great for this project – they’re thin enough that you can cut through them, but thick enough to give your lacing cards some durability.

so all you will need for this project are:

*letters – you can pick your favorite font and print out the alphabet to whatever size you want. i used a font called “aharoni.” it’s not one i downloaded from somewhere, i think it’s just one of those default fonts that comes when you buy the computer/programs. the only drawback with it is that while the capital letters are awesome, the lower-case letters don’t all look like normal lower-case letters, ie. the “j” doesn’t have a hook on the bottom, nor does the “q”, etc. so if you want just the capital letters for this font, you can download them here.

*patterned carstock – paper will work too, but carstock just makes it that much thicker

*mod podge & brush

*scissors, exacto knife, hole punch

*string & a little tape

and here’s what to do!

1. first thing’s first: grab some cereal boxes. i have this thing about saving mine…i always think i can use them for something, so i have lots. plus, we eat a lot of cereal so it’s not hard to amass a bunch of them.

cereal box crafts

2. next, take the letters you printed out (or draw your own) and cut them out. these are your templates.alphabet lacing cards

3. next, trace the letters onto your cereal box…

lacing cards out of a cereal box - Aa

…and cut them out! (use an exacto knife to get out the middles if you need to.) see – just as good as buying chipboard, and with minimal time & effort! and you’re going to cover them with paper, so no one will ever know!

alphabet letters using cereal boxes or chip board

4. next, plan out where you’re going to put your holes so that they are more or less consistent & even. i decided to this at this stage vs after it’s all put together because i wanted to be able to erase my markings if i needed to. but you could do this step at the end if you wanted to.

lacing cards for kids

5. punch your holes. you can do this step at the end, too, but i figured i’d rather punch the holes several times (once now, once when the 1st side of paper is on, and once when the second side of paper is on) with thinner pieces of paper to punch through than all at the end – you can do it, but i didn’t want to bruise my hand punching so many times through 2 pieces of cardstock AND a cereal box. it does get pretty thick. but it’s up to you!

how to make alphabet lacing cards for kids

6. mod podge your letters on to paper. first, one side (and if you’re punching holes after ever step like i did, punch them after each side so you know where to line up the hole punch), cut out the letter. then pod podge the other side. punch out your holes.

how to make diy lacing cards

7.to make sure your paper doesn’t separate, you might consider putting a thin layer of pod podge along the outside of each shape. not necessary, but it certainly doesn’t hurt! and since you have the mod podge out already….

how to make good lacing cards for kids

8. you’re almost done! get your letter and a length of string. longer is better – remember, you can always take some off if you need to, but you can’t add more on.

how to teach kids to write letters

9. take a small piece of tape and attach the string to the back of your card. keep in mind where your child will start “writing” the letter, ie. at the top? on the left side?

how to make tracing cards

10. lace your letter to make sure you have the right amount of string. admit it, it’s kinda fun! then trim it off so you don’t have too much.

diy lacing cards

11. once you’ve trimmed your string, take a little piece of tape and wrap it around the end. trim off the top so it’s nice and even. then to help even further from fraying, dab a little bit of mod podge, since you have it out anyway, on the very top.

lacing cards for kids

12. next, you’re ready to hand it over to your child and let them have some fun! younger kids just may be happy with getting the string in whatever holes they want to, where as with older kids, you can encourage them to string in the same directions you would normally use when writing a letter on paper.

cereal box lacing cards

my kids have had a lot of fun playing & learning with these!

diy lacing cards for kids

kid lacing card activities

they pack up really nicely – wrap the string around, and put it in a plastic ziplock bag or large pencil case. have fun learning!

quiet games and activities for kids

 

do you like this idea? pin it here to share with all your friends!

 

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marci says

    February 17, 2013 at 12:48 pm

    Hey FYI I think you may have spelled your blog link wrong on your photos for this blog post. Thanks for the post. 🙂

    Reply
    • Katie says

      February 17, 2013 at 3:13 pm

      Nice catch, I sure did! Doh! :O

      Reply
  2. Kirstylee says

    February 19, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    This is such a great idea. I usually make lacing cards by printing on cardstock and then laminating, but that can get somewhat expensive. Next time I’ll definitely use an old cereal box instead. Thanks for the idea!

    Reply
  3. Jackie says

    March 2, 2013 at 9:27 am

    This is such a great idea! I love it whenever I can make things with/for my children that’s not only fun for them to do but also encourages learning. I am sure they will be using these for a long time to not only learn their letters and how to write them, but also then turning them into a spelling exercise all while they just think they are having fun. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Katie says

      March 2, 2013 at 12:28 pm

      Thanks, Jackie! I’m glad you like them, and I hope your kids have fun with them, too! (while learning, of course!) 🙂

      Reply
  4. Danielle says

    April 28, 2013 at 6:24 am

    Hey there, I’m loving this idea!!!!
    One this, where on earth can I buy the little zip pouch you have it stored in, I live in the UK and can’t find them any where

    I’m love love loving your blog, I’ve only just come across it and there is so much I want to do 🙂 thanks for sharing all of your ideas

    Reply
    • Katie says

      May 1, 2013 at 12:23 pm

      Hi Danielle! Great question – though I’m afraid my answer won’t be very helpful – I got it on clearance at somewhere like Walmart a few years ago. BUT I do remember seeing this tutorial, and if you can’t find anything like the one I have, you can always make one! 🙂 http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2011/08/tip-for-sewing-with-vinyl-it-sticks-making-clear-vinyl-pouches.html

      Reply
  5. Alley says

    August 10, 2013 at 10:59 pm

    What font did you use?

    Reply
    • Alley says

      August 10, 2013 at 11:01 pm

      never mind lol

      Reply
  6. Kari says

    April 17, 2014 at 12:45 pm

    question on your lower case letter like ij that have the dot above the letter what did you do? i was just wondering how you had your child do that or did you not use it?

    Reply
    • Katie says

      April 21, 2014 at 12:51 pm

      great question! for the dots, i didn’t punch any holes but rather just put the whole circle(s) in with the rest of the letters and after they’re done lacing the bottom of the letter they just add the circle on top. but you could certainly add a hole or two in the circle and they can lace that as part of the letter, adding it on at the end.

      Reply
  7. Edie Erickson says

    September 9, 2015 at 1:43 pm

    I hope you don’t mind. I would like to link your post to mine. I have created my own lacing cards for my son and am blogging about them. I did not want have everyone think I was the originator of the idea. Therefore, I am linking over to yours for that credit. Thanks for the post. I love doing these for my boy.

    Reply
    • Katie says

      September 23, 2015 at 12:04 pm

      Hi Edie! I don’t mind at all! I’m glad you like them – yours turned out great 🙂

      Reply
  8. A says

    January 1, 2017 at 6:50 pm

    This is great! Is there a template for the lowercase letters?

    Reply
    • Katie says

      January 6, 2017 at 8:12 pm

      I didn’t do a lower-case template when I did this post just because some of the letters have a dot on top (like j, or i, etc) and I wasn’t sure how to do those. For my kids I just did without the dots, but I wasn’t sure how other people would receive that so left them out altogether.

      Reply

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  1. Activities, Games For General Conference With Kids | Live Craft Eat says:
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