A Message for Someone Special

Materials You Need: Large pieces of plain white paper (or coloured paper), crayons or pencils.

What You Can Do Together: Tell your child that he or she can make a special picture for (family member or friend). Be sure to say how happy the person will be to have something that you did all by yourself.  Then sit your child down with paper and a few crayons (larger ones are best at this age). If you need to, show your child how to make marks.  When he or she begins, encourage her/him: “Oh, look, you made a long, long line. Now I see you are going round and round!  What else can you do?” At this age, don’t expect something that looks realistic. Your child, with your support, is just experimenting.

When your child seems to be finished, you can write her/his name on it, fold up, and give to the special person. Your child may want to repeat the activity!

What Your Child is Learning: “Scribbling” like this is the beginning of later drawing and writing. Your child is gaining more control of her/his hands and strengthening connections between her/his brain (what marks he/she wants to make) and her/his hands. By creating something for a family member or friend, your child is also seeing that “writing” can be used for a purpose (early literacy) and that he/she is making someone happy through her/his actions (social and emotional competence).