Kid Reading and Writing: Letters and books to inspire

A Letter to Amy by Ezra Jack Keats and Dear Annie by Judith Caseley are great kids books about writing letters.  If you want to inspire your child to write a letter to grandma and grandpa, these are the way to go.  We read them in this order but it didn't inspire my son to write a letter to grandma and grandpa right away so I saved them to read a second time hoping that a second reading would inspire the next step.

In this book, Peter is writing a letter to Amy to invite her to his party.  His mother asks why Peter doesn't just ask her like he did everyone else.  Peter feels that this would be more special.  After finishing, he puts it in an envelope and walks out of the house but a storm is coming.  A strong wind knocks the letter right out of his hand and blows it so that Peter has to chase it.  It starts raining and the letter blows right to Amy but Peter grabs it so that the surprise is not ruined.  In his hurry, he knocked Amy into a puddle but Peter turn and ran to the mailbox.  Amy left crying so Peter was worried that Amy wouldn't come to his party.  On Saturday, everyone comes to his party but Amy and Peter was sad.  Amy and her parrot did make it to the party right before the cake was served.

In this book, the first letter from grandpa arrives when Annie is born and Annie's mom writes back since Annie doesn't talk or write but Annie is in her baby carrier to deliver the letter to the mailbox.  The second letter arrives on her first birthday which her mother writes the response but Annie is lifted up and mails the letter herself.  When Annie was two, grandpa wrote another letter and her mother wrote back what Annie was talking about and how she used the letter.  When Annie got older, she visited grandpa and he said that he was going to write her a letter when she left.  She waited at the window all night and her mother explained that mail doesn't come at night.  She waited the next day for the letter to arrive and her mother explained that mail doesn't come on Sunday.  When the letter finally came, Annie dictated what she wanted in the letter. Grandpa wrote back and Annie answered the letter with a little help from her mom.  Annie mailed the letter all by herself.  She brings the letters into school for show and tell and tells the class about how her grandfather is her pen pal.  It inspires the school to get pen pals because the children like all of Annie's letters!  The class made a board and posted mail from everybody.  Annie had over 100 letters and continued to write grandpa every week.

After you read these books with your kids, hopefully they will be inspired to write a letter.  There are forms that you can use that have some information to fill in which you can find anywhere.  I found an interesting one where there were a few things that the kids could fill in so that they don't have to come up with the ideas to write.  Check it out here on ReMarkable Home blog.  There is another friendly letter format that is a super good idea if you don't have friends and family far away to write to, use this to write a letter to a storybook character.  Check here for more ideas.  You can also just use nice lined paper for little ones or any other paper that the kids choose.

After practicing their letters, it will also give them a chance to put the return address label and the stamp on the envelope.  Then, you can go to the post office and they can put the letter in the bin or take it up to the person to get stamped.  It is a great opportunity to learn the whole process of mailing a letter.  Hope you have lots of fun with your letter writing after reading a few of these books!!!