Thank You Notes

Sweet Pea is 32 months old.

From: I started doing this a while ago so that Sweet Pea could be involved in writing thank you notes for her gifts.  After Christmas this year, we had several thank you notes to write.

Material:

• Blank note cards and envelopes.  (Target sells some cheap ones near their card section.  They are not the folded style, but just pieces of card-stock with matching envelopes.  Obviously, you could just use regular paper and envelopes too.)
• Crayons.
• Stickers (optional).
• Pen.
• Stamps.

Procedure:

• Talk to your tot about a gift that he/she has recently received and tell him/her that it is important to write a note to thank the person who gave it.   Explain that you want your child to create a picture for the person who gave the gift.
• Give your tot 1 note card, crayons and the stickers.   Let them work on the note card until they are done.   Encourage them to draw on only 1 side of the note card.

• When your tot is finished with the first note card, discuss the next gift with them and have them start on another card.
• On the reverse (blank) side of the first note card, write an actual thank you note to the gift giver.  You will have to be quick to keep up with your tot, but you will probably be able to get the first note written while they are working on the next card.  (Sometimes I let Sweet Pea decorate the back side of the envelope too. )
• Repeat for all of your tot’s new gifts.
• After all of the cards are written and the envelopes addressed, have your tot help you put them in the mailbox for the postman.

Observations: Sweet Pea enjoys talking about the gifts that she has received and really enjoys making pictures for the gift givers.  She will even make fake “letters” on the cards and tell me that she has written the person’s name or the words “Thank You”.  I hope her enthusiasm for writing thank you notes stays with her as she gets older.  🙂

This is a great little activity for us because we get to work on a project together,  it’s a good lesson in courtesy, and I get to check something off of my to-do list.

Notes from the Trenches:

1. Try to limit your child to drawing on only 1 side of the card, because it can be very difficult to write a real thank you note between all of the baby scribbles.
2. Markers can be too dark and bleed through to the other side of the note card so I advise that you stick with crayons.

Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Frugal)