Your most fun games / toys involving writing and numbers - please recommend!

[EyeOfNewtBigtoesOfFrog]

For DC aged 8 and 3. The older one has never been into games but is just starting to take an interest, and we will get him Chess/checkers as he has asked about that, but something that would help with writing would be good too.

3yo is madly into letters and numbers and wants to try writing them all the time. We have ipad apps but she wants to do it with a pen like she sees us doing.

Would love any suggestions whether it's actual family board games, activities, toys or activity books etc.

TIA - v busy today so will disappear for a bit but check back later.

For the 3yo what about decent magnetic letters (ELC are good) and some type of letter beads? My DD loves making necklaces with words on laces and then we take them off and start again. It's great for really cementing the letter shapes too as it's more physical than just looking at them IYSWIM?

This is the bead set my DCs have, I like it as it has both capitals and small case.

These stamps are nice too.

In terms of actually writing I would probably just get masses of paper and nice crayola supertips pens :o

Leap frog do a little toy that involves writing letters, will try and find you a link. Orchard games are also great, scrabble is popular in our house and dd2 uses it to play countdown ( whilst watching it on tv ).

leap frog

Dominoes could help with numbers.

Scrabble, or Junior Scrabble, for words and spelling, although not actually writing.

I looked at the leapfrog toy, but the letter sounds aren't phonics, and some of the letters aren't formed correctly.

Best for writing letters and numbers is paper/notepads and loads of nice pens/glittery ones etc, a whiteboard and a chalkboard, with loads of different coloured whiteboard pens and chalks, we haven't got the big easel sort just small handheld ones which they are always using.

An old washing up liquid bottle with water in for writing in the garden is good as well, but not much good for Christmas!

Magnetic letters are good, jigsaws maybe? Monopoly junior is very popular here, DD was 3 when we first got it and joins in with a little help sometimes. We have orchard toy games, but the 8 year old would probably find them boring now, all of mine much prefer monopoly or cluedo etc.

Guess Who and a set with chess and checkers is played a lot as well.

Thanks everyone, some one-clicks have taken place!

We do have loads of paper and pens, mountains of them, can hardly move for creations in the kitchen! Just looking for more absorbing/structured ways to play (maybe partly for myself - to play a letter or number game / activity with DD rather than just admiring the latest "S" over and over and over and over and over again )

I absolutely love the letter beads, I think they will both enjoy them actually. DS is dyslexic so all this kind of fun stuff helps.

You can get books -lettering by klutz and another one we don't have but people on here have recommended bubble writing book on amazon. They have different fancy fonts to learn. Have bought first one for dd1 for Christmas.