Activity: Shaped Notebooks

Make special shaped notebooks to inspire writing and drawing.
Do you remember when you were a kid and you would get the cool new notepad with the brightly illustrated cover? Mine had rainbows and unicorns on it, but yours may have been different. I was so inspired to write and draw in it! Taking that source of writing inspiration, I have been making special notebooks for Isadora to "write" and draw in. Here is one I did in the shape of a butterfly that we created after re-reading the Fancy Nancy book Bonjour Butterfly. Isadora noticed that one of the main characters has a very fancy notebook in the shape of a butterfly. So with a little bit of typing paper and a neon pink cover, voila! Butterfly notebook. (Notice how I label her drawings underneath. Picture of the left: Fog. Picture to the right: Lincoln is sick.)

Activity: Valentine's Day Cards

Valentine's Day cards can introduce writing as a means for communication and a trip to the mailbox.
A few days ago Isadora and I put together some Valentine's cards to give out to her good friends. She just sent out a few, but it was fun to see that she is starting to see some of her little preschool buddies as "friends."
I have a box of blank notecards with matching envelopes that I got at Target a while back, and she scribbled crayon and oil pastel over the fronts. Before she gave each card a big sweep of glue and glitter, I asked her what she wanted to write on each card. She told me very solemnly that I should write, "I love you." I obediently did this, sounding out each letter as I wrote down the three words (something that she was mildly interested in, although not that much). The next day when they were dry, I showed her how I was finding addresses for her friends and then wrote those on the envelopes while I gave her a rather confusing explanation of why we have to write addresses on envelopes. She stuck the stamps on and then we took a trip to the mailbox where she pushed them into the slot.
The only caveat in this entire experience was that, while writing down her message of "I love you" to all her friends, I forgot to also write Happy Valentine's Day. I can only hope that her little friends realize that her card is for Valentine's Day and not a proclamation of undying love. Although there is something kind of sweet about it. :)

Emails to Daddy

Along the same lines as writing down stories that your children tell you is writing down the letters (or in this case, emails) that they want to send. Isadora and I have sent countless emails to her Grandmother, friends, and her Daddy. We also sent one to ourselves just to see it pop up in the inbox. But the idea is the same: she conveys her message to me while I dutifully type away, telling her occasionally to slow down and then stopping her to read it back. This one was the last we sent to her Dad at work:

I LOVE YOU RODY! I LOVE PINK CRAYONS! THERE'S LOTS OF PINK CRAYONS IN THERE!! AND WIGGLE AND JIGGLE AND YOU BETTER NOT EAT A CHICKEN OR A PUMPKIN! I LOVE YOU PINKERS IN DE DAY. I LOVE YOU TO DANCE IN A ROW, IN A ROW, IN A ROW (SOMETHING, SOMETHING) IN A RUUUUGG! I LOVE YOU LEAF ALL IN A ROW. I LOVE YOU LEAF ALL IN ROW. I LOVE YOU TEETH IN A ROW. I LOVE YOU CROWS. I LOVE YOU WONK! WONKA WITH THE WATER, WRACKER, WITH THE WRACKER, ROCKER, RACK, OOH WOK. (ALL NONSENSE WORDS NOW)
BYE DADDY. WE LOVE YOU.

Can you tell that she was dancing around the living room while she dictated this to me?

Shhh! I'm going to tell a story!

This is how Isadora begins each story that she tells - making sure that she has my undivided attention. I have started writing down her stories as she tells them, letting her see how I write the letters and sounding out the words, and telling her, "slow down!" as I try to keep up with the disjointed little bits that she is quickly spilling out. I leave a blank space at the top of the page for her to draw a picture, but as of now she is not interested in drawing out the story and insists that I draw instead. I have resisted for the most part but I drew in something today...a stick figure man and a sheep. Want to hear the story? It has three parts, and if I were more of a techy I'd scan it, but here it is:


Part I
Little Bo Peep has not found his sheep. The wolf is his grandma but he's not and Little Bo Peep hits the wolf on the head! The End

Part II
Little Bo Peep bonked his sheep on the head. He saw three sheep. The End

Part III
Little Bo Peep has not found his sheep. He found his sheep! And was happy. The End


As you can see, my daughter is mixing is mixing Little Bo Peep and Little Red Riding Hood. Also, Little Bo Peep is apparently a boy since that has remained consistent throughout her stories.

I usually start by re-reading the stories she has created before (and she grins and giggles) and then we write down her new story on a fresh page. I correct some of her grammar as we go along. So for example, today Isadora said, "Little Bo Pee haven't found..." I said (and wrote down), "Oh, so Little Bo Peep has not found." When I did this she stopped and corrected me. "No, Little Bo Peep HAVEN'T found." And I said, "Oh, he hasn't found?" She paused and then we continued the story.

We'll see where the story goes...