Think about these things for a minute…

When we read with children and encourage reading, we promote language skills, reading skills, writing skills and speaking skills.  We help develop longer attention spans.  When we take time to focus on reading with children in our families, we strengthen family ties.

Reading is one of the greatest gifts we can give to our children.  Literacy is the greatest step in success.

Your words are the most wonderful way to begin… and to continue the love of reading and learning.  In our 31 Letters Project,  you take a few minutes per day to fill a child’s world with magnificent words, the words of your life.  Let the magic begin!

Today, Day 5 of the 31 Letters Project, is all about wishes.  Kids love wishes.  And kids love to hear stories of wishes.  Today’s prompt, or topic, is inspired by a poem we bumped into back on January 5th, on Day 5 of 365 Days of Literacy for Kids.  The poem is Silly Song by Federico Garcia Lorca:

SILLY SONG by Federico Garcia Lorca

Mama,
I wish I were silver.

Son,
You’d be very cold.

Mama,
I wish I were water.

Son,
You’d be very cold.

Mama,
Embroider me on your pillow.

That, yes!
Right away!

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Today’s letter topic is your wildest, your most innovative, your biggest or your most silly WISH from childhood.

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Here is my letter that I’ve hand-written and dropped in the mail for my 3 families of grandchildren:

Dear ________________,

Hi, my little darlings!  Today’s letter is all about WISHES… as SILLY as they may seem.

When I was a little girl, as you know, I lived in California for a few years.  Of course, being a kid and all, I always wished for the one thing I couldn’t have.  Kids are funny like that.

I had sunny days just about every day.  I rode my bike and roller skated OUTSIDE just about every single day.  I hula-hooped and jumped rope and played jacks and marbles and tetherball OUTSIDE all year long.

So what did I want?

SNOW.  Of course.

This is just about what I put my Mom through each time she talked to our family back in New England during the winter:

Mom:  Nana says it’s snowing in Boston.
Me: Aw. I want snow.
Mom: You know it doesn’t snow here.
Me: But I want snow.
Mom: You can’t always get what you want. (Some day you will know that Mick Jagger probably got this line from my Mom. Ask your parents what I mean by this!)
Me: I wish it would snow. JUST ONCE I wish it would snow.

And that was that.

Except for ONE day.  One SILLY day.  One SUNNY, SILLY day that SNOW came to San Diego.

A bunch of us kids were playing… the usual bike riding, roller skating, hula-hooping, jump roping, marbles and jacks and tetherball thing… when a big truck came rolling into our neighborhood.  I could hear kids screaming with delight and chasing after the big truck.  In the back of the truck was an enormous pile of… SNOW!

Kids came running from everywhere.  The truck stopped right in front of my house.  The driver of the truck was the uncle of the kids who lived across our street.  The uncle had been “up to the mountains” where there was, after all, SNOW in California!  The uncle and the Dad of the house jumped on top of that snow pile and shoveled snow right onto our sunny street.

My Mom ran into our house and came back out with… can you guess?

MITTENS!

For some reason or other, when we left Boston to move to San Diego, my Mom took mittens with us.  She tucked them into a drawer and pulled them out at that perfect moment.  My brothers and I were the only kids in that California snow with mittens!  I think my Mom was smiling the most of all of us that day.

The snow did not last long.  The enormous pile melted like a big old snowman on a hot day.  But I got my WISH.

That day, I DID get what I wanted (the snow)… and I got when I needed, too (the mittens).  It was a very, very good “Mick Jagger” kind of day.

What is your biggest, wildest wish?!

Remember… wishes do come true!

Love forever and ever,
Grandma Couto

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Give the special children in your life a legacy of 31 Letters.  Begin today!

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MAIL TIDBIT of the day: A postmark is applied over the postage stamp, marking the stamp as used and preventing its reuse.