I am always trying to find ways to encourage my daughter to write.  She has never been one to enjoy writing and I never wanted to make it a huge deal.

She loves making cards for family and friends so we have tried to encourage this as much as possible.  For me, card making = creative activity, sometimes including drawing  or colouring + writing practice + spelling practice + practice at verbalizing how she is feeling.  So yes WIN WIN WIN.  We love cards making as an activity in our house.

And everyone who receives a card always makes a big deal –  honestly who would not love been given a hand-made card ? –  which just ends up encouraging my daughter to make more and more cards.  Her father and I have a much-loved ever-growing collection of these cards.

She also enjoys making cards for her grandparents who live overseas.  I am not allowed to see these cards as they are just for her gran-gran and grandpa but both grandparents have informed me that they are very much-loved and that they contain lovely little notes inside.

Most of her hand-made cards are made using this little set which she loves – it is folded card and envelopes, but she loves the fact that she has her own card box.  I think it makes her feel very grown-up to have her own little box of cards to use.

I find her card box is taken out and used at least twice every week.  Her enthusiasm for card making has infected her little brother and he has now also started making some – mostly for his cousins or his big sister and mostly using stickers (the stickers used in the photo below are from Baker Ross).  But it is a great start.

And he has now extended his card making skills to include some cutting pages that he did recently.  I wish I had thought of this earlier as it has become a great incentive for him to practice his cutting.  The pictures that he used in the photo below are part of the cutting skills packs from Twinkl – Jungle themed cutting pack and the shapes cutting pack.

and he has started writing a few words in his cards.

We have also managed to extend the kids love of card making to include colouring cards (they always pick the cards from the Activity Village website themselves).  My daughter did the daffodil card for a friend who she was missing at the time.

And her brother joined in and did this cute frog card for his friend.

They have also made a few of these I love you cards – my daughter in particular likes to make these ones.  The more detailed I love you card did take some time to colour in but we did it as an activity together for her dad

Oh and still a firm favourite with both my kids are Tissue paper cards.  They still enjoy making these – here is an old post that I did about them – Heart cards for children to make.

Like I mentioned above card making ticks lots of boxes in our house.