Free printable worksheets, made for your child

Free printable worksheets for every stage

Dot & Loop is a library of free printable worksheets for children aged about 3 to 10, made for parents at the kitchen table and teachers in the classroom. Everything here is about the basic skills that sit underneath all later schoolwork: holding a pencil and tracing lines, forming print letters, writing names and words, learning joined cursive handwriting, and getting quick with times tables and early math.

There are two kinds of worksheet on the site. Ready-made sheets are already designed and waiting: every letter from A to Z, every number from 0 to 20, each times table from 1 to 20, and sets for whole topics. Worksheet makers build a sheet from what you type: your child’s name, a list of spelling words, the times tables they are working on, or the size of lined paper you need. Both print on US Letter or A4, both are free, and none of them asks you to sign up.

Find worksheets by age

Children move at their own pace, so treat these ages as a starting point rather than a rule.

Ages 3 to 4 (preschool). The focus is on pencil control and recognising letters. Start with tracing lines and shapes, which builds the movements every letter uses: straight lines, curves, zigzags and circles. Then try name tracing, because a child’s own name is the most motivating first word there is.

Ages 4 to 5 (pre-K). Children start forming letters on their own. The letter tracing worksheets cover every letter, capital and lowercase, with dotted letters that follow the real strokes. Number tracing from 0 to 20 runs alongside, with ten frames to link each numeral to a quantity.

Ages 5 to 6 (kindergarten). Letters become words. The kindergarten handwriting worksheets use simple word families like -at and -ig, and the kindergarten math worksheets cover adding and taking away within 10.

Ages 6 to 7 (first grade). Handwriting gets smaller and neater, and sentences appear. Try the handwriting practice sheets maker for any sentence, and addition and subtraction within 20.

Ages 7 to 9 (second and third grade). This is when most schools that teach cursive begin. Start with the cursive alphabet and the beginner cursive worksheets. It is also times tables time: the times table chart, flashcards and a page for every table.

Ages 9 and up. Cursive words, sentences and signature practice, the harder times tables, division and telling time to five minutes.

How the worksheets are made

Every worksheet on this site is drawn from scratch rather than copied from clip art, and the details follow how schools actually teach.

• Print letters use a simple, rounded style close to what most US and UK schools teach in the early years, with a single-storey a and g.
• Tracing dots run along the centre of each stroke, the path the pencil should follow, so children learn the movement rather than colouring in an outline.
• Cursive follows the school style based on Zaner-Bloser that is used in most US schools that teach cursive, including the rule that B, D, F, O, P, S, V and W do not join the next letter.
• Handwriting lines have a top line, a dashed midline and a baseline, set so the midline sits exactly at the height of the small letters.
• Math sheets come with an answer key on a second page, and the makers create a fresh set of problems every time you click “New problems”.

Each page is written and checked by a person against school standards before it goes live. You can read more in our editorial policy.

Tips for practice that actually helps

Worksheets work best in short, regular bursts. Ten minutes a day, four or five days a week, does more than an hour on a Sunday. A few habits make those minutes count:

• Watch the start of each letter. Most mistakes in handwriting come from starting in the wrong place. Put a finger on the starting point before your child begins.
• Trace, then write alone. Tracing teaches the movement, but writing from memory is where it sticks. Our sheets always finish with empty rows for that reason.
• Ask for their best, not their most. Five careful letters are worth more than a page of rushed ones. Ask your child to circle their best one on each row.
• Keep the pencil short and the paper tilted. Small hands control short pencils better, and tilting the paper slightly makes writing more comfortable, especially for left-handers.
• Stop while it is still fun. End on a good attempt, not on a frustrated one.

Handwriting, from first marks to joined writing

Handwriting grows in stages, and each section of the site matches one of them.

It starts with pre-writing: scribbles turning into deliberate lines, then circles, crosses and zigzags. These shapes are the building blocks of every letter, which is why occupational therapists often check whether a child can copy a cross or a square before expecting letters. Our tracing pages for lines and shapes practise exactly these.

Next comes letter formation, where children learn where each letter starts and which way the pencil moves. Good formation matters more than neatness at this stage. A child who forms an “o” by starting at the bottom and going clockwise can make it look fine, but it will slow them down later and make joined writing much harder. That is why every letter page here describes the strokes in order.

Then children move to writing words and sentences, where spacing, size and staying on the line become the goals. Finger spaces between words, tall letters reaching the top line, and tails dropping below the baseline all start to matter.

Finally, around age 7 or 8 in many schools, comes joined or cursive writing. Each lowercase letter gains an entry and exit stroke so the pencil can flow through a whole word. Children who learned good print formation usually pick up cursive quickly, because most cursive letters start in the same place as their print versions.

Early math that sticks

The math pages focus on the facts and skills children use every day: number formation, adding and taking away, times tables, division facts and reading a clock. Fluency with these frees up a child’s attention for harder problems later. A child who has to count on their fingers for 7 + 8 has less room left to think about what a word problem is asking.

Short daily practice builds that fluency better than long sessions. Five minutes with a worksheet, a quick round of flashcards in the car, or the online times tables quiz while dinner cooks: little and often wins. Every math maker on the site creates new problems on demand, so children never memorise the answers to one sheet instead of learning the facts.

Printing tips

All worksheets print in black and white, and the light grey tracing letters are designed to stay visible without using much ink. Print at “actual size” or 100% rather than “fit to page”, so the lines stay the size they were designed to be. For letters or facts that need lots of repetition, slip a sheet into a clear plastic sleeve and use a dry-wipe marker, so one printout lasts all week.

Choosing paper for writing practice

Plain lined paper and handwriting paper are not the same thing. Notebook paper has single lines spaced for adult writing, which is far too narrow for a five-year-old. Handwriting paper has three guide lines per row, with a dashed line in the middle showing where small letters stop, and comes in larger sizes for young children. If your child’s letters are wandering all over the page, switching to proper handwriting paper at a bigger line size often helps more than any amount of correcting. For older children and adults, the lined paper maker prints wide, college or narrow ruled sheets, with or without a margin.

For teachers

Teachers can print whole sets as a single PDF, make one page per child from a class list with the name tracing maker, and use the math makers to generate as many different versions of a worksheet as they need, each with its own answer key. Everything is free for classroom use, and nothing asks children for any personal information.

Free, without the catch

The site is free because it is supported by a small number of ads, which never appear on the worksheets themselves, inside the tools, or next to the print button. There are no accounts, no email sign-ups and no paywalls. If a worksheet helps your child, the best thanks is to share the site with another parent or teacher.

We add new worksheets regularly, guided by what parents and teachers search for and ask us. If there is a sheet you cannot find, tell us and it may well be the next one we make.