Handwriting

As I've been dipping my toes in the waters of homeschooling I've begun giving Jamie little assignments and resonsibilities at home including washing 5 dishes every day, writing specific letters of the alphabet in her journal, creating something with scissors, paper and glue, and reading a minimum of 3 books (we ALWAYS exceed 3 books anyway.) I've noticed that as much as she loves to read and create things and play in the soapy water, she's very upset about having to copy over two or three letters in her journal. She tries to negotiate with me, "Ok, Mom, I'll write this letter one time." Or "Mom, how 'bout I just draw pictures of my friend?" It's quite adorable actually, but it has concerned me since soon there will be more writing assignments and paperwork to do once we transition to 100% homeschooling after Pre-K.
I've tried several things. We bought a fancy writing journal and decorated it with stickers- the pages were quickly filled with drawings and more stickers and other random scribbles. We tried sparkly pencils and pens. I even gave her some flexibility, "You need to copy these letters over today whenever you'd like, as long as it's done before bedtime." Do I even need to tell you that bedtime would approach and the paper would sit on her table- blank. By the time I noticed the blank page we would be neck deep in baths, pajamas, storytime and last minute snacks and drinks (for THREE children) before being tucked in for the night. So even that didn't work.
Finally, I have discovered a combination of things that work. The first thing that has encouraged Jamie to finish her assignments and chores for the day is a little incentive. I cut out triangles from brown construction paper and glued them, upside down, in rows on a large 11X14 sheet of paper. On rainbow colored paper I cut out "scoops" of ice cream. When a "scoop" is glued to the upside down triangle it looks like an ice cream cone! They are very cute. So, when she finishes something on her list of assingments she gets a scoop for each item. Together we agreed that when all the ice cream cones are full we'll have an ice cream sundae party after our family meal one night. The dishes get cleaned, she sits in her reading corner and looks through books for the better part of an hour, but for some reason the ice cream chart just still isn't enough encouragement for her to do her writing assignment. The blank writing assignment paper remains.
Then this afternoon we were making birthday cards for Aunt Stacey. Jamie spelled out H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y S-T-A-C-E-Y. With a heart, she signed her name. She had just practiced writing her letters and without a fight! She finally put a scoop of ice cream on a cone for writing her letters (I may have been more excited about this than Jamie!) So, if you receive a card in the mail from Jamie for seemingly no reason at all... well, we were thinking of you, of course! But she may also have been practicing her handwriting...