Activities are a great way to make a lesson about manners tangible, being polite is a hard thing to learn especially for young children, doing something concrete like making a thank you card will help them learn their manners !
- Gather your materials. You will need some card sock or some pre-folded note cards. I used one card for the art work and a second for the inside. You will also need something to decorate your card with, we chose the water color crayons I reviewed last week.
- Start decorating your card. The water color crayons were great because they make fun baby scribbles into art! The crayons were a little tough for my little guy to press hard enough so I drew the circles and he took care of the next step!
- Bring out the water and start painting!
- Let the card dry.
- When it’s dry you may have to stick a second card inside the painted one, my card was pretty warped from the water, but a second card taped in with double sided tape fixed all that!
- Write in your note but don’t forget to let your child include their signature!
” Booker and the Bully” by Marilyn Moscovitch tackles a touchy subject in schools these days and does it in s gentle way. The emotions Booker goes through being bullied really come through in the illustrations and young children will be able to identify them which will help them understand the story and topic.
” How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight” by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague is a beautifully illustrated story about the tantrums and dramatics that dinosaurs put their parents through at bedtime. I really like this book because it asks if dinosaurs do all these naughty things and kids love to point out what the dinosaurs shouldn’t be doing. Of course in the end the dinosaur s remember their manners and go to bed with hugs and kisses and the lights off!
This is a cool site. I work with kids too. And yes. I also believe there are far more effective ways of bringing out the kids’ talents and teaching them other than flash cards.
Good luck!
What a great idea! I’ve been working with our son on saying “please” and “thank you”. His birthday is coming up and I think we’ll do this so he can send thank you cards for his presents!
Are water color crayons different than the regualar crayons? I love this idea and want to have the kids make their thank you cards this way.
They are- they look like crayons but when you add water to them they transform into a water color. Here is the product review I did for them ( not sponsored at all- I bought them and reviewed them myself).
https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/watercolor-crayons
They are usually in the adult art supplies. I need to pull them out again it’s been a while.