Love Notes

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! How many of you wrote a love note to your Valentine today? Did anyone get to be the recipient of a love note? Well, in my family, we’re not real into the Valentine’s Day holiday. But, I do LOVE to write and receive love notes. Lucky for me, love notes aren’t reserved only for February 14th! Whether it be a five page long expression of sentiments from the bottom of my heart, or a simple sticky-note with an “I love you” scribbled on it and stuck somewhere to be found, love notes are a simple and fun way to share your love with your spouse and your children.

A few years ago, I came across an idea (although I cannot remember where I found it) for writing notes to my kids. I purchased a few small notebooks, each one with a different cover, to be assigned to each of my children. Then, on the first page of the notebook, I wrote a short note inviting the child to be my “pen pal”, by writing little notes back and forth in the notebook and leaving it on each other’s beds.

For example, this is what I wrote to my (then) 8 year old daughter:

“Dear M,

Would you like to be pen pals? I thought it would be fun to be pen pals, but instead of sending letters through the mail, we’ll keep them in this notebook. I will write to you, and leave the notebook on your bed. Then, when you want to write me back, you write on the next page and leave the notebook on my bed.

You can write anything you like. It can be funny or serious or anything you want to write. Sound like fun?

Love,

Mom

P.S. Write back soon! XOXOX!”

A little while later, I found the notebook on my pillow with this written inside:

“Dear Pin Pal,

Why is it that people or should I say KIDS come in my room when I’m not here? I meen it is not their room. I don’t no about you but to me that is plane rood.

Love,

M.”

(Evidently, her little brother had gone in her room and made a mess.)

Here was my reply:

“Dear M,

I can understand how you feel. It is rude when people mess with things that don’t belong to them. I don’t like it when it happens to me, either. I’m sorry, but I did give your brother permission to use your tent. I didn’t think you would mind. Sorry.

Love,

Mom”

Then came this:

“No Mom, I’m sorry becous I don’t yous my tent eney more. I should say that I’m sorry for making such a big deal about a tint. I’m realy, realy sorry.

Love, M”

It was hard at that point to keep from cringing and criticizing the spelling, but I wanted to keep the lines of communication flowing and not let them be hindered by fear of misspelling a word. So, I kept my mouth shut. For the most part. Plus, I could easily identify trouble spots with her spelling and use those misspelled words for spelling words for school.

A few months down the road… she went from printing to cursive, and her spelling also began to improve. Here is a note she wrote just after we began our 2nd year of homeschooling:

“Mom,

I love the thing we are learning about because it is fun! Oh, and I LOVE YOU MOM. Did you hear me? I LOVE YOU MOM!

P.S. I love home schooling, mom!”

How is that for a love note?

I have so enjoyed keeping these notebooks going with my kids. It has given me an insight into their minds that I don’t know that I would have had otherwise.   I highly recommend trying this and seeing what happens with your own kids!  You might be surprised! 

 

 

Happy writing!

Tagged as: communication, handwriting, journaling, spelling, Valentine's, writing