creative hand writing ideas for a perfectionist? I need to come up with a game, but am stuck...

[midnightwriter]

DD (9 in a month) seems to be more and more frozen by her perfectionism (we are working on it). She really wants to have a nice handwriting and wants to be able to write, but finds practicing irritating / annoying (her words).

Her handwriting is actually quite nice (but not very steady / developed), especially considering she put very little time into it--just a few minutes here and there, not on a regular basis. But she's afraid of making mistakes. I offered typing as an option, and this is not what she wantes right now.

She asked me to create something fun / cute and fairy related for her. She loved the 'fairy math' games that I did for her. All I can think about is writing little fairy poems, (as fairies and poems go together for me :lol:) but she is not into poetry. She also doesn't like copying things.

Here are my thoughts on this, but they are not coming together in any coherent way:

1. write special / magical words as messages for fairies; cute paper / pens

2. long term treasure hunt / hints (i give her riddles, she needs to write the answers, and this answers lead somewhere...? I comfuse myself here :lol:)

3. Fill in the blanks in a fairy story--I'd write a story, and she'd hand write some words?

(I thought about actual letters to fairies, but she finds letters in general overwhelming--has friends who would LOVE a letter, but she won't write...)

hmmm...I thought i had more ideas...

Anyone feeling more creative today? BTDT?

Thanks!

[Dar]

Would she prefer tracing, maybe? Like you could write things (notes to fairies) very lightly in pencil, and she could go over them with a nice pen.

Rain has found that her handwriting is much better with nice pens, like very fine-tip felt-tip ones from the art supplies store.

Would she like to make some signs? "Fairies sleeping - shhh!" or "Fairy crossing - be careful!", or something.

When Rain was that age and wanted to work on things, often she wanted very small chunks. Like, she was concerned about her spelling for a while, so I would write three "spelling words" on the white board and she would copy them or look at them or whatever (maybe just walking by then and looking at them a dozen times was enough), and then she'd ask for a spelling test, and then I'd write new ones. Maybe something like that would work? Like if you make some handwriting sheets with one or two words written lightly and then rules lines underneath, and she would trace and then write... and leave it in a certain place and if you notice it's done, replace it with a new one. No pressure, at her own speed.

[pinky]

"Games for Writing" by Peggy Kaye is a great book with lots of fun ideas.

[4evermom]

What about nonwriting exercises that build writing skills?  Like making decorative curlyques and such.  My ds is very resistant to anything writing but I saw him tracing dotted lines in a wipe-off book that were obviously designed to build cursive skills.  I remember practicing the capital letter L by making one long connected loopy line from the top of the page to the bottom (you make a cursive L and instead of ending it, you start making another one).  Those sort of things might be separate enough from actual writing for the perfectionism to not kick in.

ETA:  I don't know why I was thinking cursive writing, but still, maybe the prettiness will be fun.  And maybe her cursive attempts will seem less imperfect to her because it doesn't have all those straight lines that look crooked to her?  I've heard some kids that never liked printing take to cursive more easily/willingly.

[Daffodil]

How about this?  One hundred fairies have been captured by an evil sorcerer and imprisoned in a bottle.  With her magic pen (maybe one that writes in a cool color or has sparkly ink), your daughter can free the fairies one by one and transport them to a magical, protected island.  To free a fairy, she has to write its name.  (She could make up the names herself if that would be fun for her; otherwise I suppose you'd have to make up 100 fairy names.  Or maybe she could pick them from a baby name book.)  If she likes art, she could paint a big picture of the magical island and then write each name on the picture.  If you wanted, you could give her a time limit to release all the fairies - the evil sorcerer will destroy any that are still in the bottle at the end of the day, or week, or month.  Once she's freed all the fairies, then maybe she could use her magic pen to add things to the island.  Whatever she writes will appear there: a herd of snow-white unicorns, a snow-topped mountain, a field of singing flowers, a crystal palace . . .

Also, my 8 year old, who hates printing, has been having fun learning to write cursive.

[midnightwriter]

Thank you all, but I like Daffodil's suggestion best

[sapphire_chan]

You could combine Daffodil and Dar's suggestions, and have her trace the first 50 names.

[Tjej]

Could you make fairy pictures with words?  Like fill in the wings of a fairy with words like "fly, flutter, flap, wing, etc." and other things/parts with other appropriate words?  I think that would be fun (and besides handwriting it'd build vocabulary and creative thinking).

Tjej

[midnightwriter]

Yes, I will be combining etc. I'm really happy with all the suggestions! Thank you so much! I was really stuck there, and now feel more creative and inspired.

[midnightwriter]

The Daffodil's gorgous idea in my gorgeous execution just totally backfired , so I have to reevaluate my approach again.

I basically sent her a magical letter, that I painstingly wrote in her handwriting of choice (something similar to D'Nealian cursive), which explained the situation of the poor fairies, and asked her to write "Yes, I want to help" if she liked the game.

She got upset that she didn't know how to write the capital Y (which I'm pretty sure she knows how, and in any case, she only had to copy it); when I offered to show her how, or to show her how it is written in her work book, she said that if I had to help, the game would be ruined.

We are at sqaure one. She is not happy NOT to play the game, and is not happy to play it. I'm grateful I didn't finish all the fairy names in advance .

Oh well, it was a nice try. She might change her mind, at some point. We will see. I think DS will love a game like this when he wants to learn to write. I think he will enjoy it for reading as well. Thanks for the idea!

[4evermom]

Maybe you can tweak the game so that she has to write the letters the "wrong" way so that the fairies can escape the evil sorcerer.  They are trapped because they only know how to form letters one way and can't do it differently...  The evil sorcerer cursed the bottle so they can't escape because he wrote all their names carefully down to prevent them from escaping.  But dd can trick the evil sorcerer by writing their names a little differently.  If she makes any letter of their name standard, they will be stuck until she makes them too big, too small, backwards, upside down, or missing lines.

[midnightwriter]

Originally Posted by 4evermom 

Maybe you can tweak the game so that she has to write the letters the "wrong" way so that the fairies can escape the evil sorcerer.  They are trapped because they only know how to form letters one way and can't do it differently...  The evil sorcerer cursed the bottle so they can't escape because he wrote all their names carefully down to prevent them from escaping.  But dd can trick the evil sorcerer by writing their names a little differently.  If she makes any letter of their name standard, they will be stuck until she makes them too big, too small, backwards, upside down, or missing lines.

I like this, thanks! I will wait a little bit, and then talk to her about it.

[onatightrope]

I'm going to put this out as an alternative perspective.  I am a perfectionist, and I'm raising at least a couple.  Something perfectionists have to learn to do is to grit their teeth and get through the part of learning a new skill where they do it badly (at least in their own opinion).  No amount of making it fun is going to take away the fact that she needs to practice to be able to do this as well as she'd like.  Instead of solving this problem for her, I would ask her to try to come up with a plan for herself on how to work more writing into her life.  Something I have done is stopped writing for my older girls (8 and 10)-- I realized that by writing for them, I was helping them avoid working through something they needed to work through.  There have been tears over not being able to write the way they want, but it got better much more quickly than I ever dared hope.  When they are struggling, I commiserate that what they're doing is difficult, but I won't carry the burden for them, because I know they can do it.  Telling them I know they can do it seems to help too.

Just an opinion-- take it for what it's worth.

[rainbringer]

Originally Posted by Daffodil 

How about this?  One hundred fairies have been captured by an evil sorcerer and imprisoned in a bottle.  With her magic pen (maybe one that writes in a cool color or has sparkly ink), your daughter can free the fairies one by one and transport them to a magical, protected island.  To free a fairy, she has to write its name.  (She could make up the names herself if that would be fun for her; otherwise I suppose you'd have to make up 100 fairy names.  Or maybe she could pick them from a baby name book.)  If she likes art, she could paint a big picture of the magical island and then write each name on the picture.  If you wanted, you could give her a time limit to release all the fairies - the evil sorcerer will destroy any that are still in the bottle at the end of the day, or week, or month.  Once she's freed all the fairies, then maybe she could use her magic pen to add things to the island.  Whatever she writes will appear there: a herd of snow-white unicorns, a snow-topped mountain, a field of singing flowers, a crystal palace . . .

Also, my 8 year old, who hates printing, has been having fun learning to write cursive.

Daffodil - my dd loved this idea!

Another activity that we've been doing for handwriting is an egg hunt.  I fill the eggs with letters and a few surprises, then she goes and finds them and writes the letters she found in the eggs.  That has lasted us a couple of weeks now.

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by rainbringer 

Daffodil - my dd loved this idea!

Oh, good.  I'm glad someone got to use it.  I ran it by my own daughter (who hates writing) before I posted it, to see if it actually had kid appeal.  I wondered if she would think it sounded fun and would want to try it herself.  But she said that it sounded pretty good, but a little babyish.

[midnightwriter]

Thank you. Something to think about. We're still finding our way.

Originally Posted by onatightrope 

I'm going to put this out as an alternative perspective.  I am a perfectionist, and I'm raising at least a couple.  Something perfectionists have to learn to do is to grit their teeth and get through the part of learning a new skill where they do it badly (at least in their own opinion).  No amount of making it fun is going to take away the fact that she needs to practice to be able to do this as well as she'd like.  Instead of solving this problem for her, I would ask her to try to come up with a plan for herself on how to work more writing into her life.  Something I have done is stopped writing for my older girls (8 and 10)-- I realized that by writing for them, I was helping them avoid working through something they needed to work through.  There have been tears over not being able to write the way they want, but it got better much more quickly than I ever dared hope.  When they are struggling, I commiserate that what they're doing is difficult, but I won't carry the burden for them, because I know they can do it.  Telling them I know they can do it seems to help too.

Just an opinion-- take it for what it's worth.

[newsolarmomma2]

I have an idea

How about finding some copies of old manuscripts, myths and such, that she might like. Then she could create her own, mimicking the style of the original. This would cover handwriting without being boring, and also reading and creative writing. There are lots of old works that Re interesting!

Hope you like this one!