My Little Guy's Birthday and A Great Writing Idea

Today was my youngest son's 7th birthday! We were lucky enough to be able to celebrate together with his class and mine.  His class is our reading buddy class, so he wanted to share cupcakes with my class. We went to their room and enoyed some yummy Steelers (his team) cupcakes.  My class made him this giant birthday card.

While we were in his room I learned a great writing idea from his first grade teacher.  At the beginning of the year she gave each student a circle map to write about themselves and the things that they liked.  Luke's circle graph had: dolphins, nachos, Chinese food, and action figures.  On the student's birthday, she has all of the students write them a letter picking one of these items as their topic to focus on.  Many letters said things about dolphins and nachos, but it was a great way to teach the kiddos to stay on topic.

Here are a few of the letters:

Luke even wrote a letter to himself!

I think I will be stealing this idea for next year, although with my 3rd graders I might have them write a paragraph for each item.

Do you have any ideas for teaching the idea of staying on topic while writing?