Teaching a Preschooler to Love Writing

Okay, so I'm not sure how many of you actually saw my post the other day on how Benjamin really didn't want to do his writing and it ended in a fight etc. Well it got me thinking what ways I could get him to WANT to do it and here is one of the ideas I came up with.

A written-by-the-child book! Use favorite character printed cut outs and have them write the story! It worked great and he actually wanted to make another book today, so I decided to share the idea.

Items you need:

• 1 piece of colored construction paper
• Two (or more) pieces of plain white paper
• Stapler
• Glue
• Marker
• Pencil or Pen
• Scissors
• Pictures of favorite characters

I started off with going online and finding pictures of Power Rangers, since that is his new thing. Today when we did it, he helped choose pictures, but it is a LOT more time consuming as he loves to scroll through the millions of pictures in awe. 

I printed them off and then had him choose a piece of construction paper for the cover and got two pieces of white paper for the books pages.

I cut out the little pictures, or if your child is a little more skilled have them do it. Prepping these the day before or before you present the idea to your kid will definitely save some time.

Take the construction paper and fold it in half. Then fold the white paper in half and place inside the construction paper, seams together. Staple from the inside or from the outside, whatever is easiest for you.

Have your child choose a picture for the front and glue it where they want it. With Benjamin I asked what he wanted the title to be, then I wrote it in pencil in large enough to trace letters. Then I had him trace the letters I wrote with a marker. The title of his red book (as pictured above) is Power Rangers Me. Made me giggle but those are his own words and it is his book, after all.

I continued to do that with the remaining pages. He chose the picture, glued it, told me what to write, then traced what I wrote and here is the story he came up with:

Story of Power Rangers My Toy

Red Ranger

Joker Robot

Transformer

By Benjamin

Now as you can see, he is fairly new to writing and for him it is a huge chore. He would rather feed the cat every day, which he does do, than sit down and try to learn to write. When I saw how excited he got about this project, I was ecstatic. FINALLY something my kid will sit and do.

And now until this project becomes dull, I will continue to try to make books or have him write on pictures with his favorite character of the week on it, to try to nurture a love for learning in him. Plus, I got him to do crafts. That never happens! 

Thanks for reading!