How to Make Writing a Letter Fun

Last week was my son's spring break and since he spent a fair amount of the week with his grandparents, there were few deceptively educational activities happening at my house. So I'm finally getting around to publishing this old blog post about how I enticed my son into writing his kindergarten teacher a letter last summer.

It's perfect for a hesitant writer or a child that needs a jump start writing.

8 months ago ...

I knew getting a soon-to-be first-grader to write a letter without a major meltdown or cascades of “I can’t do it” was going to take nothing short of magic.

Instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, though, I typed up a series of sentence starters for a letter to his kindergarten teacher and threw them in one of my son's play hats. A few examples follow:

I had so much fun when we ___________.

I will miss ____________.

This summer, I am __________.
I hope I don’t forget __________________.

I am glad you were my teacher because _____________.

You are a good teacher because _____________.

I am ____________ about 1^st grade.

All my son had to do was pull one out, copy it down, and finish the sentence. Little by little, a letter was written. His teacher had worked so hard to teach him to read and write this past year, it’s only fitting that my son show off his new-found skills in a letter to her. (Plus, she gave the students her mailing address at the end of the year with a promise to write back.)

I cannot say enough about how blessed we were that Mrs. E was our son’s first school teacher. There are simply no words that even begin to explain how wonderful she is.

My son gave it a pretty good shot, though.