Where Can I Get French Penmanship Paper?

[greta_elisif]

I have decided I will teach my daughter French-style penmanship, when it comes time for formal instruction in the subject (since the style is pretty, easy to write, easy to read, and possibly most importantly, it’s ergonomic). So, I’ve been trying to find the penmanship paper and/or notebooks for it, so I’ll have them ready when I need it, but I can’t find any, except on French websites. My stepmom, a French teacher, translated for me and explained those companies don’t ship to the U.S. She recommended Canadian Amazon, but all they have is one workbook. I already have downloaded a lot of exercises from French sites so I don’t need any more or any workbooks, just blank paper and/or notebooks, in graded widths. In case you don’t know what kind I mean, I can say the beginner-level paper has five horizontal lines, somewhat like a musical staff, for each line of writing. I don’t know about intermediate level, and advanced level is apparently some sort of graph paper, but I’m not sure what kind. Can anyone help me please? :) Thanks!

[KAR120C]

If you can figure out what it looks like, maybe you could make some in Word? I print out blank paper for DS with various combinations of lines in whatever spacing is currently working for him. I'm curious about the French penmanship now -- off to google! LOL

[greta_elisif]

> [M]aybe you could make some in Word?

I thought I may have to make my own and print them, but I figured that might be a last resort because it might wear out the printer. I’m thinking I might already need to do large amounts of printing because I am planning on printing a lot of e-books (post about that to follow).

Here are some things about the advantages of vertical script:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ew4CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA208&dq=reasons+in+favor+of+vertical+script
http://books.google.com/books?id=OeUBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA578&dq=Pennsylvania+School+Journal+vertical+handwritin g

And I’ve seen a couple of types of vertical script taught using the English language, but the forms of the letters weren’t quite as graceful and elegant, which is why I decided to use the French exercises instead.

In French, penmanship is “écriture.” The modifier to use in the search would be “maternelle,” which means literally, “maternal,” but figuratively (I think) “kindergarten.” So, search for “écriture maternelle.” If you know practially no French, like me, pick the “translate this page” links. The translations are awkward, but still helpful.

Here are some links to websites where I have downloaded relevant files. The fonts can be used for making more worksheets, posters, etc.:

http://www.momes.net/education/ecriture/graphismes.html (this one has beginner exercises, ones without letters)
http://www.teteamodeler.com/soutienscolaire/ecriture/ecriture.asp
http://materalbum.free.fr/pagesgr.htm
http://cp.lakanal.free.fr/ressources/ecriture.htm (this one has fonts)
http://jt44.free.fr/
http://maternellecolor.free.fr/Index.html (ugly graphics and a nightmare to navigate, but it has a lot of stuff: “polices” means “fonts,” directly underneath that link is one to a page with several lower-case letter pages in the “ecriture” section, on the right side are links to Calinour va l’ecole, Leïla et la baleine, Boucle d’or, Elmer à cache-cache, and La piquante aventure de Hérisson, which also have pages in the “ecriture” section, mainly cursive.)
http://ressources.ecole.free.fr/outils/polices.htm (there are a lot of useful French-style school fonts on this page)
http://pragmatice.net/kitinstit/3_installer_produire_polices_selection.htm (this page has even more good school fonts on it, penmanship in Modèles & Exercices)

[TengoFive]

Maybe contact Miller Pads and Paper and see if they can make some?

[Christina in ME]

Greta,
I learned cursive in a French school. I see what you mean about the paper, but I have to truthfully say, that I don't remember having such paper when I was learning. I actually don't remember having any special paper really, just regular composition notebooks. We used the quad notebooks for math. Wish I could be more helpful, but just wanted to let you know you can learn it without the special paper.

Christina

[training5]

Handwriting Without Tears uses a vertical style cursive. From what I have read on the site, their 2 line paper is French based. On another note, don't you just love the French language?

[pixelroper]

sounds like a variation of the Japanese 'English Penmanship' journals?? not sure I've seen that in different levels. This has 4 lines w/the 2nd from the bottom in red. At any rate--- here is a paper generator that might be helpful..?
here (http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/)

this is a site where you make your own writing paper in the sizes you want, all kinds of different paper, custom handwriting, graph, hexagons; after designing, download as PDF and print as many as you like! it is loads of fun even if it doesn't solve your current problem:)

is this it? (http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/calligraphy/)

it has 5 lines

[greta_elisif]

I’ll look into these suggestions. Thanks for the links. French is a nice language, but I can’t understand it. :) My stepmom is the family French scholar, and German too; she teaches both. I took German in school since it seemed more straightforward and I’m part German and Swiss, but didn’t learn much besides how to sing “Wenn die Soldaten” and “Bier Her” (yes, a drinking song, in high school—my German teacher was a little odd)! German did help me learn to read some Swedish, though. I’m part Swedish too, hence the flag. Apparently, if you know French, German, and English, Swedish is easy to learn, because there are a lot of words borrowed from French and a lot of cognates in German and English from Proto-Germanic and Old Norse.

[MyCrazyHouse]

... (yes, a drinking song, in high school—my German teacher was a little odd)! ...
Probably no more so than French teachers using the delightful song "Alouette", about plucking a lark bit by bit. (I learned it as a child - my family is French - but never even noticed the translation until recently.)

Have you considered using the downloadable font "Ecolier Ligne" from this site? http://ressources.ecole.free.fr/outils/polices.htm#graphisme It appears to supply the lines, and I wonder if you could just use underscores to create blanks.

Edited to add: duh, I just looked at our Spencerian Penmanship practice books - Copybook 3 (http://www.amazon.com/Spencerian-Penmanship-Copybook-Rogers-Spencer/dp/0880620854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218242190&sr=8-1) would probably work for you. It's a similar style penmanship (particularly the formation of the lowercase p), though italicized.

[greta_elisif]

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I think I’ll just print out “lignes” font spaces on newsprint pages to approximate handwriting paper, because I think it will be for only a few years. Then I’ll just buy her graph paper, since it looks like French people normally write on it, and we’ll need it for science and math anyway.

[Alessandra]

Perhaps Alliance Française or L'École Française -- I know the ones in NYC, but I think there are others -- has a U.S. source?

[greta_elisif]

Perhaps Alliance Française or L'École Française -- I know the ones in NYC, but I think there are others -- has a U.S. source?

Thanks. I just looked at the Alliance Française resourses and there wasn’t anything, and I had already e-mailed the San Francisco French school and didn’t get a response, and I just looked at the Maine French school site and didn’t see anything relevant on it.

[Chez J]

It's was "found" by a font finder site. It is a perfect match to what my dd learned in CP in school. I'll have to dig around for the file. Since I don't come here every day, email me if I forget to post a link before Monday. lesley7244@yahoo.com

Lesley

[Chez J]

Please email me to get it. lesley7244@yahoo.com

Lesley

[asta]

I have a triple lined paper that I printed off the web years ago (link is long gone, sorry) for kiddo's Belgian writing. I took it into Kinkos and had them run off a gazillion for me.

If you PM me your e-mail, I'll send you a scan of it in .pdf


asta

[Janet in Toronto]

Clairfontaine is a french notebook maker. You can get them in the US here (http://www.exaclairinc.com/brands_clairefontaine_story.shtml). I am assuming the "French ruled" is what you are looking for.

I have also seen the notebooks in university bookstores and stationery shops here in Canada.

[Audrey]

Here is a good source for French ruled notebooks. http://www.shopwritersbloc.com/frruno.html

They teach this style in the schools here, but they don't use this paper to teach it. They use regular-lined notebook paper.

[CritterSitter]

I have decided I will teach my daughter French-style penmanship, when it comes time for formal instruction in the subject (since the style is pretty, easy to write, easy to read, and possibly most importantly, it’s ergonomic). So, I’ve been trying to find the penmanship paper and/or notebooks for it, so I’ll have them ready when I need it, but I can’t find any, except on French websites. My stepmom, a French teacher, translated for me and explained those companies don’t ship to the U.S. She recommended Canadian Amazon, but all they have is one workbook. I already have downloaded a lot of exercises from French sites so I don’t need any more or any workbooks, just blank paper and/or notebooks, in graded widths. In case you don’t know what kind I mean, I can say the beginner-level paper has five horizontal lines, somewhat like a musical staff, for each line of writing. I don’t know about intermediate level, and advanced level is apparently some sort of graph paper, but I’m not sure what kind. Can anyone help me please? :) Thanks!
I have been trying to figure this out for ages! It turns out ecriture means writing not penmanship. Graphisme is style so, ecriture graphisme gets you what you want. Check out this website http://www.momes.net/education/ecriture/graphismes.html It is originally in French but you can hit the translate button to get English. It gives the various exercise sheets which kids start with and eventually all of the letters - lower case and capitals. It is on the 5 line traditional paper. Hope this helps!

[8mimi8]

I went to a French school in Houston TX from 1st through 6th grade and the seyes paper is great. Here is a link to a site that has a printable version.

http://temps-pi.blogspot.com/2008/01/quadrillage-seyes-en-pdf-et-svg-format.html

Here is another site where you can choose the kind of lines for the paper and even write in things that will be shown in cursive so that they can be printed foe practice.

http://cursivecole.fr/ecriture1.php

Good luck!

[greta_elisif]

What’s PM please?

[Corraleno]

What’s PM please?

"Private Message" ~ Click on a person's name and in the drop-down menu you'll see "send a private message." Click on that and you can send a message to that person's "inbox" on the forum.

Jackie

[greta_elisif]

Thank you for all of these suggestions. They are helpful. :) I’m looking forward to buying some notebooks, also running lots of French penmanship pages through the Google translator (otherwise I’d be at it for years, looking up nearly every word! :biggrinjester:).