Day 102 / 102 - Dear Mom / Dear Dad

My daughter turned nine the first week of December.  Just before her birthday I challenged her with a new idea.  I asked her if she wanted to begin writing back and forth in a daily journal.  Well, since she was turning nine, this really did seem like the BEST. IDEA. EVER.  She loved the floral journal I purchased.  When we began writing, she did so several times a day.  We stepped it up a notch by adding stickers and decorations to each page.  Now, we sometimes draw pictures or add quotes.  We've completely filled more than one notebook.

Of course my intention was two-fold.  I knew she would love the idea, but also I wanted her to work on her spelling.  I mentioned earlier this year about her lack of spelling skills, and how we've seen her drastically improve (here).  Keeping this journal was one of the ways we've seen significant improvement in her spelling.  At first I told her I didn't care at all about her misspelled words.  However, it wasn't long before she started asking me to correct her misspelled words.  Then, it wasn't long before she was spelling every word correctly.  Success.

She and I were having so much fun journaling to one another, that my son and my husband quickly joined in and began a journal of their own.  They write more stories to each other, about neighborhood roosters and raccoons, and they tell more jokes.  We've spent quite a bit of time filling up our notebooks this year, so this seemed like an appropriate post to end my 2012 - 2013 homeschool assessment.