Help Your Preschooler “Write” a Love Letter to Grandma

Every year since I was little, I have tried to find a special way on Mother’s Day to show my Mom how much I love and appreciate her!  Because I like to do art and make crafts, my gifts have often been “artistic projects” that were created for her.   I have done personalized zentangles, personalized word-art, photos with us holding up signs saying, “We Love You!” and countless original cards.

When Onetime (my 2.5 year old son) was born, I wanted him to understand how good it feels to make something special for someone he loves – and so the tradition began of having him make something for his grandmothers on Mother’s Day.

This year – we came up with two special gifts:  a handmade plaster plaque showcasing symbols of each grandmother’s interests, and a very special letter to grandma (or Nan and Oma in our case!).

To start, I interviewed my son about his Oma.  I asked him as many questions as I could think of and got some good answers.

However, I found that giving him a sentence prompt (where he would complete the sentence) got more detailed responses.  So, I compiled a list of the prompts that I used.

You can download your own list for FREE here from our Printables Page.

After interviewing my son about his Oma, I wrote up a fill-in-the-blanks “letter” to grandma.  Here is a screen-capture of part of it, so that you get the idea.  This is included in the free printable here.

Next, using Word, I typed in my son’s answers in bolded text.  This way Oma would know what words were exactly his!   Here was my son’s completed letter!  My favourite part is the end where he tells why he loves his Oma!

Then we had to decide how to present the letter.  We could fold it up in an envelope, or include it with a card.  That would be fine, but I thought that framing it would be nice.

We played with different ways of decorating around the letter and on the mat of a picture frame.  We tried sponge painting with acrylics, drawing with acrylic markers, and painting with pompoms dipped in paint.

In order to make sure that Onetime didn’t inadvertently paint or colour over top of the words, I covered them up with another piece of paper taped on with removable tape.

In the end, Onetime liked the letter that we printed out on pink paper the best – and I thought the flowers he painted on the mat frame using pompoms dipped in paint looked the nicest for framing.  I think this letter is absolutely adorable and a really nice way to get Onetime thinking about how much he loves and appreciates his grandmothers.

I can’t wait for his grandmothers to see their letters and gifts that we made for them!  Isn’t that the best part about making someone a gift?   Now, we just need to do the other grandmother and then I have to get my husband to interview my son for me….!

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Happy interviewing!