Looking for a rainy day activity to entertain children? Making gratitude cards is a beautiful way to engage with loved ones.
Begin by talking with your child about the people in their life they might be missing at the moment. That could be a grandparent, cousins, aunties and uncles or friends.
Ask why they chose those people and what they appreciate about them. Write down what they tell you.
Using resources from around the home, support your child to make a card for the people they chose. You can add your child’s message to the card after they have completed their original artwork.
Your child might wish to add their signature to the card. When beginning to write, some children will make a mark on the page; some children will attempt to form symbols or letter shapes, and some children might choose to copy your writing.
All of these are valid forms of emergent writing, and children will move at their own pace as they develop their writing skills over me. The most important thing for children to understand is their mark on the page carries meaning. Such as their name on a special message in a gratitude card.
Deliver your cards to the people they are made for – in person if you can or take a trip to the post office to post the card.
This is a great learning experience for your child as you put the card in an envelope, buy and put on the stamp and place this in the post box. They will have lots of questions about how the process works.
When your child is creating, they are:
- Experimenting with different resources in different ways
- Being creative and learning about design, patternmaking, dimension and composition
- Solving problems and developing their own ideas
- Using shape, form, texture and colour to express themselves and their ideas.