A few month's ago my mom sent my daughter a blank sketchpad and a pack of stickers. She continues to send my daughter a "letter" every other week with an additional pack of stickers. My daughter loves getting mail and opening letters, and has so much fun putting her stickers in her book.
I love this idea/activity for several reasons:
-Creates a fun bond between grandparent/grandchild
-Keeps everything in one place - makes it easy to go back and review what you have previously done
-Helps improve Manual Dexterity (even I have trouble peeling stickers off at times)
-Encourages creativity (sometimes there is a very specific order in which my daughter places the stickers on the page, sometimes it is completely random)
-Fun way to Practice Counting (How many owls do you see on this page? Let's count together),
Identify Colors (Let's take off all the red stickers first), Recognize Shapes (What shape is this pie sticker? Can you find any other stickers on this page that are circles) & Create Patterns (Let's put down 2 hearts and then 2 stars)
-Also an easy way to teach new words, create stories and use imagination (my daughter will sit and play with her sticker book long after we are finished putting in the new stickers)
In order to keep this book/activity special - we always put the sticker book away once we are finished (I would recommend out of reach) until the next letter comes or when my daughter asks to look at it (which is always under my supervision). This is a good way to teach how to take care of and be gentle with special items.
That is great. I need to tell my mom about that… or maybe Elise? Andrew and Maddie could be sticker pen pals. 🙂