If you read this blog you might envision that we sit down and diligently write each day, filling up journals and notebooks and blank pages with letters and words.
Nope.
Writing is hard. It's hard for children and it's hard for grown-ups. It's taking something that's inside of you, bringing it out, and trying to make it just what you imagined. Learning to write is risky (Can I do this right?), frustrating (That's not how it's supposed to look!), and exhausting (I'm too tired. Too thirsty. Too hungry. This is boring.)
Knowing this, how do you nurture a love of learning without pushing?
I guess you just remember that writing should come naturally. That is should be fun. That all writing really is is playing with letters, and words, and ideas.
And that even more important than learning the right way to do things is learning how to learn. Children who learn how to learn absorb information through any means possible. They look, they listen, they touch, they move, they manipulate, they create. And they see endless possibilities instead of just one right answer.
This is something I was reminded of while watching my son play in the sand tray I has set up for letter-writing practice.
As suggested, he practiced "writing" the letter J in the sand.
He wrote J over and over again to see how many times he could shake it invisible.
He made Js and erased them by opening and closing his fingers to make what he called "hand angels."
He made Js and turned them in to J mountains.
And he disappeared J after J with magic sand storms.
Needless to say, he did more writing while playing then he ever would have done otherwise. And all of that sandy stimulation to the tactile receptors in his fingertips sent a couple of loud-and-clear messages to his brain:
This is how we make a J
and
Writing sure is a ton of fun.
For those of you who want to incite some magic sand storms of your own, I repurposed the wood letters and the wooden box from this puzzle for our sand tray, but a baking pan would work just as well. Oh, and I forgot to snap a picture of our little broom and dustpan. Keep one nearby. (You'll thank me later.)
