Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Quicksand Dash: Trace Your Thoughts Out Loud

Find out if Number 1 really wrote this to me.


WHAT: Quicksand Dash
DOES: Allows parent or teacher to make dashed letters (to trace) using whatever words they like; you can even make a thank you card.
INVEST:     freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
TOOLS: Foment the Love of Language; Express Yourself; Fertilize Responsibility and Courtesy, Social Scene Helper, Remember to Learn; Family Fix-it



One little Thank You card can do so much.

That is what I learned from "asking" Number 1 to write a thank you letter after we recently threw him and Number 2 a birthday party.

Number 1 literally asked me why we have to write thank you cards.   I am sure Number 1's father was thinking the same thing.

MY RESPONSE: Do you think I had a birthday party with a bouncy house and a humongous bouncy slide when I was a kid?

Looking back, I think this was not a good answer but we did have a bit of a talk about saying thank you and being grateful.  However, I think he got the message much more clearly as he wrote out the cards himself.

As I was preparing to help him, I found out a couple of things including this very cool dashed font that allowed my child to type something, print it out, and then he could write over his own words.  I found it on this very pretty website.   You can get the font here.  It's free.

To me, this act of writing Thank You cards is really just him thinking about the day, translating his thoughts into words, editing the word strings he made, and then when he writes over it, he is committing those words and thoughts into his memory.  I have not talked to an expert about this as I did in my series about working memory but I like to think that the very conscientious act of writing will help him commit things to memory and help him to practice articulating his thoughts more clearly.

Even though I made my kids gift-unwrapping ritual very strict by opening the card, opening the present, disposing of the wrapping paper before moving onto the next one, both of us STILL managed to get foggy when trying to remember who gave him what.

Prevent Robo-Writing


Additionally, when I say "conscientious act," I mean that I ask him to say the words out loud when he writes over the dashes.  Otherwise, I think it is as effective as:

I will not hit my little brother.
I will not hit my little brother.
I will not hit my little brother.
I will not hit my little brother.
I will not hit my little brother.


Have you ever done that?  I am not sure that really works.

Number 1 would execute such a punishment this way:

I
I
I
I
I

and right next to "I" he would write:

will
will
will
will
will


not
not
not
not
not


hit
hit
hit
hit
hit

......you know what I mean.  This other kind of writing practice, printing and writing his own words and thoughts using Quicksand Dash, I feel, is a much better way of getting him to remember his party guests and the presents he received.

Writing a thank you card also helped give us some closure to the event.  Number 2 had been anticipating this day for months.  It's no wonder he was so excited and a bit unlike himself the next day afterwards.

The message? Yes, birthday is over now.  You have school tomorrow and you will have homework.  Life goes on.  


But seriously, where is the thank you card to Mom?  Whatever! I just decided to write my own (see above).  I also wrote one to the owner of the party place because my party host did a great job wrangling with the powerful energy blasts of Number 1 and Number 2.

Tomorrow, there will be another giveaway.... It will be very cute and very useful! Stay tuned!

But today, if you haven't done so already, try to win yourself a Tetris Link.(ends 2/10/12 at 12:01am  EST)  It's up for a TOTY award for best game of the year but to me, I just think it can bring lots of different kids together.

Final card-writing tip: If you have a lot of cards to write, don't do it all at once.  I tried to crank more cards out of him and that met with bad results. 

A Birthday Party Tip: This year, we combined the two kids' friends.  Surprisingly it worked out okay even though the age span between the oldest to the youngest of the guests was a 4 year difference .  I think the key factor was that we kept the party really small.   I suspect that even the kids appreciated the lessened noise and commotion.  Even with financial constraints pressuring me, it still took a lot of will power not to invite my own friends whose children get along with but are not that close to my kids. Having the party be more about them and less about me allowed me to focus and pay attention to my kids and their guests more.  Ugh, enough yucky mature talk...  enjoy Quicksand Dash!





Disclosure: Toys are Tools has not been compensated for any of the mentioned products in exchange for the publication of the post.  

3 comments:

  1. This is great. I can give him sheets to practice writing his name.

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  2. Great tip on the font. My daughter will enjoy that.

    Re thank you cards, I am not good with them anymore, but when I was still doing them, as my children were prewriters, I had them draw and dictate. We talked about what they received and WHY they liked it and drew and dictated from there.

    As for parties, we only do family ones, but I always liked my sister's guideline: her kids could incite as many friends as they were years old and they got older, they usually opted to invite fewer so they could do costlier things.

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  3. This is a pretty cool idea. Also check out thankster.com, it's a startup I am with and we help people send thank you notes to friends and family in the mail. Take a look and let us know what you think.

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