Handwriting and Easel Art

One of the curriculum books that Matt and I decided to Order for Oliver this year belongs to the series Handwriting Without Tears.  My First School Book is designed specifically for Pre-K students and is preparing kids with early Readiness skills, Drawing, Alphabet Knowledge, Colors and Coloring, Pre-Writing, Writing, Counting and Number skills. 
I am highly recommending this book along with its teachers guide.  The guide itself is really an entire curriculum on its own filled with great lesson plans and other fun ideas to help foster a positive early writing experience.

Story Telling on Paper

Because we love to read so much in our house, the make-believe play and language that my kids use are often a reflection of their favorite stories. They love to become the characters in their books and often tell stories that are similar to the ones they are reading.  The have wild imaginations and come up with the funniest things...you wish you could record them all day long!  
One of the things that I love the most about small children is their creativity and their imaginative play.  When Oliver was about two years old I decided to start recording some of his stories on paper.  Just because kids can't write yet doesn't mean they can't get a great story down on paper!  

This is Oliver's first story at age two.  

I bought this pocket notebook to start writing down Oliver's ideas.  I found a simple writing page online that was designed for Kindergarten students and printed a master copy that I could reuse (I kept this in the pocket folder and printed more as I needed them).  I simply taped these pages in the notebook as we wrote new stories.