Shelby's Stories

Shelby has been a writing machine lately! It's been crazy to wtiness her writing progress! BooBoo & Pop-Pop gave Hadley a sticker book to decorate faces for her 2nd birthday, but Shelby quickly became a BIG FAN of it! She is OBSESSED with creating the faces and then writing stories about the characters. It started out as her dictating stories to me, and I would scribe them for her. But she just randomly started writing the stories on her own, and it's often the very first thing she does when she comes downstairs in the morning and the first thing she picks back up when we come from being gone to school or to the park. She is really into it!

A grocery list she made for me one day ;)

Here is one of her stories written entirely independently (pictured below on the left):

Once upon a time there was a girl named Woodey. She is an employee of Wallmart (Wal-Mart). She was very nice to everyone and they loved her too! She is so very nise (nice), so everyone was nise (nice) to her. She lives in Washington DC! The end!

It's hilarious to me, but Wal-Mart has shown up in several of her stories now despite the fact that she's probably only been to Wal-Mart a grand total of maybe 3 times in her entire life! Doesn't she know we are Target people?!

These were to-do lists she created for herself. I think she's seen Mommy make these a time or two ;)

I know I've said this before, but it serioulsy blows me away that she is writing stories at 4.5 years old! It's just crazy! But the best part about it just watching how much fun she's having with it, she loves writing! And truth be told, the perfectionist in me (and Shelby!) coupled with my desire to guide/teach  competing with her desire for independence has a tendency to create a bit of tension between us, so I tryto give her as much space as possible when she is writing. It seriously just melts my heart to hear her saying words aloud to herself to "listen" for the sounds and running all over the house to find where a word might be spelled out to copy it (she loves to refernce her map puzzle to write the states where her characters to live!)--she does whatever it takes to get it done on her own! We are just so proud of her! It's such a joy to watch your child growing & learning!