Nicole Dean has written an article with some cool ideas to get your child excited about writing! I know a lot of kids are reluctant to write – my boys were when they were little. I tried different things to get them excited about writing, but, we definitely struggled with it. I love these ideas suggested by Nicole. I could’ve used this article several years ago! I hope it proves helpful for you!

Encouraging Your Child to Write
Written by Nicole Dean

How in the world do you get your child to write? This is the battle cry of many parents. A lot of imagination, with a little bribery (or praise) is all you need to get your child writing. We’ll supply the imagination. The praise and bribery is all up to you.

Grocery List: Enlist your child’s help in making the grocery list. Walk around the kitchen, naming things you need from the store. Ask your child to write everything down. Your child can also suggest foods you might need from the store and he can add those, too.

Old Checks: If you’ve recently switched banks and have checks that need to be destroyed, first let your child play with them. Give him some envelopes and he can pretend to pay bills – while getting him to do some writing. Of course, destroy the checks afterwards. If you do not have checks available, you can just give your child some blank pieces of paper and he can make his own checks.

Cards: If your child is interested in Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards, then give him some index cards cut in half and have him design his own cards. Encourage your child to give the characters names and special abilities on their cards.

Fictional Journal: Sometimes it is hard for children to write in a journal. What is there to write about? Instead of a standard journal, give your child a fictional journal. He or she can pretend to be anything they’d like to be and write a journal as that person. Your child could write from the perspective of an Astronaut discovering a new planet, Prince or Princess on an Adventure, Archaeologist finding a new species of Dinosaur, Famous Athlete, President of a Country, Passenger on the Titanic. Your child could write from the perspective something instead of someone, a mailbox, an animal, a pen. The possibilities are endless.

Letter-writing: Have your child write a letter to Santa, the Easter bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. Or, your child could write to their favorite athlete, fictional character, or movie star.

Alphabet Game: Take a piece of paper and write the letters A-Z in the left column. Then, choose a category from the following or make up one of your own. Vegetables, Fruits, Animals, Musical Instruments. For older children, the categories can be narrower and more difficult, like Countries, Characters in Literature, Presidents, etc. Set a timer and you and your child both list as many of the items in the category as you can for each letter. The trick at the end is that you have to cross off anything on your list that your child has listed. (for instance, if you both have “apple” for an “a” fruit, then the parent crosses theirs off.) Whoever has the most words wins.

Character Game: Tell your child to pick a character from a book or movie that he’s familiar with, and you do the same. Then, ask several questions and you each write the answers to the questions on a piece of paper. When you’ve finished asking the questions, then have your child read the answers and try to guess who he was pretending to be. You do the same and see if your child can guess who you were. Whether you are pretending to be Peter Pan or Shrek, you and your child will have fun and your child won’t even realize he’s practicing his writing!

Visit www.ShowKidsTheFun.com and Free Online Preschool Themes for more fun ideas to spend time with your children.

I just replenished all of my stock of stuff I need to run My Very Own Mail, including all of the fun crafts, stickers, bookmarks and tattoos! Let me tell you – that is one of the most fun things of running this business – getting to buy all of that fun stuff. And even better yet, is the day the mailman arrives at my door with the box! I also replenished all of my office supplies needed from this unique gift for kids business. I have always loved office supplies, so that is going to be a fun box to open, as well!

When I was shopping for the goodies, though, I had trouble locating more ‘ladybug’ stuff. So I am going to phase that category out for a while – and there’s where your good deal comes in! I have two packages left of the ladybug category. So I decided to give two people a very special deal today! Right now, for today only, you can order one ladybug package (so just a one month subscription) for 20% OFF the regular price!

That comes to just $9.57 +shipping

Let me show you what your child is going to get with that package! The first thing, of course, is the letter to your child wherein I tell them about a super groovy ladybug book:

(You can click on the letter to get a much better look at it!)
And as with every package, the sweet, little bookworm dude:

I snapped some quick pics with my phone of the craft package and the stickers so that you could get a look at them:

I took a close up of the instruction sheet so that you could see what the finished craft will look like. It’s pretty blurry, but, it gives you an idea:

I only have two of these packages left, so if you want this, order now! I will remove the Paypal button when they are both gone. And I do hope to add the ladybug category back into my list of topics. I’ll have to dig around for more supplies at a later time. So for right now, this is it!

UPDATE: Both packages sold! Maybe we’ll get those ladybugs back in here soon – they’re just too cute!!

Grab it now if you want it!

Thank you!