![]() ![]() She is like the Kristen Wiig character from Saturday Night Live who can’t keep a secret and who can’t help herself when it comes to surprising someone with good news. My kids walked by the wall with my notes on it several times, but it went unnoticed until my oldest was sitting on the toilet and saw what I had left for her and her siblings. Tell me 3 things you want to do this summer.Īnd then I waited. Tell me 3 of your favorite book characters. I wrote their name at the top and asked them to tell me three things: I grabbed three sheets of paper from the printer and taped them on the wall under each of their school pictures. Or you can create some family prompts: What should we plant in our garden? What songs should we add to our road trip playlist?” Woo told Scary Mommy that if you have more than one child, “You can give each child their own prompts, writing their name at the top. There was no way all three of my kids could have shared one piece of scrap paper, or even a billboard sized poster board. Let it just sit there and be a quiet place for thoughts, hopes and curiosities,” Woo wrote on Lifehacker. You don’t even need to give the wall a name. “Don’t talk about the noticing wall, or at least don’t talk about it too much. ![]() These are the same reasons I wanted to try a “noticing wall.” The key, according to Woo, is to have all of the interactions happen quietly and at the child’s pace and desire. It was pretty special to see the grin on their faces, too, when I wrote affirming and silly letters back to them on Mondays. It’s a great way to see their writing progress and their confidence grow. Because as I tried to decipher what my kids wrote, I was finding gentle ways to essentially ask what the hell does this say? The pictures helped, but my kids’ willingness to either interpret or laugh it off because they didn’t know either was worth more than the actual words. Storytelling and communication come through in pictures and broken letters and misspelled words. The goal was to get kids comfortable and confident with literacy in a non-teaching kind of way. The subject was their choice and the letter usually described a highlight from the week with a photo they drew to go with it. And then an adult in the house would write them back. As part of their Fearless Reader and Writer work, my kids would write a letter home each Friday. My kids continued weekly reflections when they went to kindergarten. Instead of just asking how their day at school went, I would ask about their daily reflection it was a specific talking point that usually led into other discussions. They were also conversation starters at the end of the day. The sum of all of these prompts adds up to a beautiful product and reads like a diary or the memory book I had intended to keep for each of my kids. The reflections are mostly stories through pictures, and the progression in how their creative minds think and then transfer onto paper in the course of a year is like watching a sunrise or flower bloom in slow motion. At the end of the year, we were given a bound collection of these reflections they are some of my most prized possessions. Sometimes the teachers would inquire about the book they were reading in class or ask the kids what kind of animal they want to be. The kids were challenged to think of their favorite activity to do with a friend, or something that starts with a particular letter of the alphabet. The teachers would create a prompt each day on a piece of paper and the kids would draw their response and add words if they wanted to practice their writing skills. All three of them went to the same preschool, and while in their 4/5 year old classroom, they wrote what the teachers called Daily Reflections. My kids (8 and 6) have done similar activities at school. Let me tell you, I am absolutely a sucker for this kind of stuff. They wrote poems, practiced writing the letter P, and came up with fun things to cook together. Instead of worksheets, Woo started to leave love notes, questions, suggested word games, and even letters of apology. Woo, mother and parenting editor at Lifehacker, created a “ noticing wall” for her daughter and you will want to as well. This happened over and over until Woo realized this could be a good way to communicate and connect with her daughter in a fun and no-pressure way. The next day Woo replaced it with another without mentioning it. Without any pomp or circumstance her daughter quietly filled out the worksheet. Woo knew her daughter would see the worksheet, but would she engage? She wasn’t going to force the issue, but she wanted to make it seem less intimidating. When Michelle Woo’s 6-year-old daughter didn’t show any interest in the math and reading workbooks given to her by Grandma, Woo tore out a page of activities that looked fun and taped it onto the side of the kitchen island. ![]()
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