2 Holiday-Inspired Writing Practice Ideas

by thetripclip, posted in Holiday, Uncategorized, Writing & Spelling

I found lots of opportunities around the holidays to get my kids to practice skills just by having fun and doing holiday things. I had them wrap the presents they were giving people, which gave them practice measuring and cutting and just generally with coordination. I cooked with them which teaches coordination along with math and science and so much more.

Here are two ways you can use the holidays to motivate your kids to practice writing. Have them write a letter to Santa or write thank you notes for gifts they received. Older kids can do these things all on their own. For younger kids, you can use The Trip Clip’s letter tracing activity to print out customized, traceable pages for them to use.

Dear Santa

Surprising no one, writing a letter to Santa was definitely more motivating than writing thank you notes.

Here’s how you can make this yourself:

  1. Purchase the letter tracing activity on The Trip Clip website.
  2. Click ACTIVITIES in the menu bar at the top, and select Letter Tracing from the buttons on the left
  3. In the letter tracing activity, select the radio button for ‘Write Your Own Words’
  4. Ask your kids what they want to say to Santa, and type it into the letter tracing activity for them.
  5. For the list above, I chose to use letters that are 3/4″ high, but you can make them smaller or bigger depending on your child’s age and writing skills.
  6. Click PRINT and then have your kids trace their words to send to Santa.

Thank You Notes

The printable, traceable thank you notes from The Trip Clip make it possible for young kids to be more involved in the thank you note process:

This works similarly to the Santa letter above. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Purchase the letter tracing activity on The Trip Clip website.
  2. Click ACTIVITIES in the menu bar at the top, and select Letter Tracing from the buttons on the left
  3. In the letter tracing activity, select the radio button labeled ‘Thank You Notes’
  4. Fill in who the gift is for as the Recipient.
  5. Ask your kids what they want to say in the Message. I usually encourage them to name the gift they received, and then say one thing about what they liked about it.
  6. Enter your child’s name in the signature field.
  7. For thank you notes, I recommend using 1/2″ letters, because those will fit best on the folded card. One trick if you need more space is to put the first few lines of your message in the “Recipient” section.
  8. Click PRINT, fold the card into quarters, and then have your kids trace the letters so the thank you note will be hand-written by your child.

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