To say that my 5 year old is obsessed with Star Wars would be the understatement of the year. Remember his Star Wars pop-up book? I'm been trying to harness his interest and use it to encourage him to practice his handwriting and storytelling skills.
I'm not even quite sure how he first learned of Star Wars. Perhaps from a friend at school? By now he has brow-beaten his dad and me to see the first three movies. (I still think of them as the "first", even though they are technically Episodes 4-6.).
In any case, it doesn't matter. If he is interested in Star Wars right now, I'm going to harness that interest for educational purposes. Why not use it to make handwriting practice fun?
New Kid learned that there are soon to be three more Star Wars movies! He wanted me to tell him the stories, but truthfully, I really did not want to make up Star Wars stories so I said instead he could write them!
He balked at the handwriting of course, but the idea of having new Star Wars books was too tempting to pass up. He agreed to write the titles and draw the illustrations. I wrote the interior text.
I think this was a win-win. I didn't have to tax my brain coming up with plot points on a topic that bored me (hey, just being honest, here), but my son would give his fine motor skills some action while drawing and writing.
This project extended over at least a week. We have four new books now. (Yes, I've been reading them to him ever since...) New Kid feels quite proud of himself and I enjoyed listening to the crazy stories he invented.
Watch out George Lucas.
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Jessica @ Play Trains! says
Love this! Right after my son discovered Star Wars (still hasn't seen the movies at this age, but some how knows everything about it anyway at this point!), he went through some kind of developmental leap with writing. He spent two hours at the dining table last summer, getting me telling him how to spell the characters' names. 🙂
Erica MomandKiddo says
Yes, most of the words he recognizes are from Star Wars! You have to start somewhere, I guess.
esivy says
There's a good cartoon television series based on the Clone wars that all my kids liked. My son really liked the graphic novels that went with the series. He's still a big Star Wars fan. 🙂