Pen Pals :)

I mentioned in the June Recap post that we had started writing to a pen pal, so I thought that I would put a little post together about that. There was some talk of it in one of the Facebook groups that I am in a while back, but I stayed out of it as I wasn't sure Bear was old enough for it... but, not long later, someone posted asking whether someone might be interested in being a pen pal for their son. He was also a little young to be a typical 'pen pal' writing letters to each other, but mum had questioned whether they could send drawings etc for now and I thought it was a lovely idea. Reading the rest of her post, what she wrote was almost identical to what I would have written about Bear, other than her little boy was a bit younger. All his interests were very similar to Bear's though, and we set up for them to get in touch!

A week or so later I received a message to say that G had posted his first letter for Bear, and I was even more surprised as the photo could have been Bear himself! They really are little doubles!

*Photo used with mum's permission*

I told Bear that his letter was on its way, and although I had explained that it would take a couple of days, he insisted that we check our postbox every day until it arrived. The day it did he was extremely excited to see that it had his own name on the envelope!

Opening it caused more excitement when he found the contents included a little craft as well as a colouring and his letter.

We spent a couple of days deciding what Bear wanted to include in his reply, and then got busy while his little brother was napping one day. He did a dinosaur colouring, made a pipe cleaner butterfly and then he wrote both G's name, and his own name on the letter, and dictated the rest for me to write. We worked on replying to what G had written, and asking some questions of our own so that there is the start of a conversation for them.

The pipe cleaner butterfly was a great attempt, although caused a few frustrations, but I was proud of him for keeping trying as it had been his idea to make something with them when he'd found them in the craft stash. The butterfly had been my idea as it was simple!

I love the idea of the pen pal as it is going to give Bear a real-life purpose for writing. He can already write his name, and does so on birthday cards etc, and has recently started attempting the name of who the card is to, by copying from a wipe-clean board.

I am hoping this will encourage him to want to try more, and with the crafts, colourings and other endless possibilities, it will be nice to see what he comes up with to include in his letters.

We posted our letter a couple of days later when the weather was nice enough to walk to the post box, and we are eagerly awaiting another reply from G. Bear regularly, although thankfully not daily, asks to check the postbox to see if there is anything with his name on. 

I'm looking forward to seeing their friendship grow on paper, and to see how their confidence with pen and paper changes.

I'm sure I will post about this again sometime, but until then, if you have any questions, drop me a comment :)

Momma Bear x