This week's Picnic Table Talk from the ladies at ABC and 123 is all about WRITING!

• How do you practice writing with your children?
• What inspires you to write?
• Do you enjoy writing? About What? Why?
• What is the difference between teaching writing and teaching printing?
  What are your favorite writing utensils?
  

Me:

-I do have to say that before I started blogging, I didn't write a lot. I don't even have texting. Not that that counts as writing, but, it does bring up an interesting question. Do kids these days know how to write? I know my friend who teaches 7th grade English struggles with this. The kids tend to want to write abbreviations for words and often want to write incomplete sentences.

-Now that I have been blogging, I find that I really enjoy writing. Granted it isn't using a pen and paper but, for me it is better than nothing, like I was doing. It is going to sound funny, but I actually love the feeling of a real pencil on paper. Mechanical pencils just don't feel the same.

Kiddos:

I have been looking for a little kids table for my Mr. Manny (3). We had one for my other 2 (17 & 11) but that is long gone. I wanted something that was his size so he could feel in control. Lucky me started thinking out of the box and found a Lane side table with a drawer at our local Thrift Store. $10. I could have found something cheaper, if I would have looked longer but, I was eager and Lane is a good brand. And, when he is all done with it, we can use it for an actual side table. Reuse people, that's what it is all about.

I moved his alphabet and stuff that was already hanging on our wall over by his table. We are planning on using these letter templates from Preschool Express. http://www.preschoolexpress.com/alphabet-station08/letter-patterns.shtml I want to cover them with contact paper so we can reuse them and then we can use them as playdough mats too. D can roll out playdough worms and fill in the letters. I also like these letters because they are so fat. Dotted letters would be hard for him to trace and we will get to those later.