The Fill-in-the-Blank Letter – WFMW

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My 11 year old son is at summer camp this week for the first time.  EEK!  I’m sure he’s having a blast and will have tons of stories to tell us when he comes home on Friday.  Rosie Girl and I mailed him cookies and a letter on Monday.

The camp information recommends that we send some self-addressed stamped envelopes or postcards to encourage kids to write a letter home.  In seven years of camp, I think Rosie Girl has written us all of two letters, but I thought Wild Man might actually want to send us a note since it’s his first year.  The problem is that he’s not much of a writer (largely because of his dyslexia). 

I solved the problem by writing a fill-in-the-blank letter and putting it in a SASE envelope.  All he has to do is circle the correct answers and fill in a few blanks and then mail it.  Easy, huh?  Mr. Math Tutor suggested I not use this for a WFMW post until we see if Wild Man actually sends it back, but I still think it’s a great idea.  You can use it for family vacations when you want the kids to write notes back to family, but don’t want to have to sit with each child to do a dictated letter.  You can also send it with kids when they leave home to encourage the fine art of pen-and-paper correspondence.

Here’s what the letter looked like:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Hi there. I love you very much – yes/no. I’m having a good/bad time here at Outpost. My favorite food we have had here has been _________. My favorite activity so far has been ____________. The name of one of my new friends is __________. We like to do ___________ together.

One of my counselors’ names is _________________. My speaker’s name is _______________. He is talking about __________________. I have been swimming – yes/no. I have been on the slide – yes/no. I have been on the bipod – yes/no. We played __________________ at the all-camp games.

I miss you – yes/no. I can’t wait to come home -yes/no/maybe.

So, have you ever done anything like this to encourage correspondence with/by your kids?  Did it work?  Check out We Are That Family for more Works For Me Wednesday ideas!!