Photography inspires kids - heck, it inspires me, too! Get your child involved in a photo writing prompt idea. Give her a camera, and the idea to document a day in the life of her favorite toy. Last weekend, I helped 6-year old JJ with her "A Day in the Life of Bunny the Rock Star" photo-writing project. Photo Writing Prompt A Day in the Life of [Your Favorite Stuffed Animal] CHOOSE YOUR … [Read more...]
Heart Mapping Gives Kids Writing Ideas
I LOVE heart mapping for Valentine's Day but I also love it for pushing through a writing block. What to write about is a very common (and frustrating) challenge for young writers (and us old writers, too.) Georgia Heard suggests heart mapping as a way to generate ideas for the challenge of what to write. Once kids create a heart map, they can use it for writing inspiration and ideas. Above … [Read more...]
Make Your Own Paper Bag Book
Rachelle at TinkerLab, challenged bloggers to be creative with paper bags. Of course, I wanted to take a literacy angle and made a paper bag book that you can easily make, too. I found inspiration from That Artist Woman. Paper Bag Books DIY Paper Bag Book Supplies paper bags (lunch sack size) stapler paints (tempora) paint brushes flower pictures pens drawing book of … [Read more...]
Easy Pop-Up Books
Combining art with writing often motivates children to write. I've tried different pop-up books with my classes and found it's a prompt that often motivates kids to write. the easiest pop-up technique is criss-crossing strips of paper. Easy Pop-Up Books How to Make a Pop-Up 1. Cut two long identical strips of paper. Put one end on top of the other end so they make an "L" shape. 2. … [Read more...]
Writing a Christmas Play
Becoming a playwright will get your kids writing. Using figures or dolls to write a Christmas play is a fun writing prompt that engrosses young writers. Kids get to see what they wrote in a live performance and that in itself is very motivating. Steps to Writing a Christmas Play 1. Characters Pick the characters in your story. We used Christmas toys to get started. JJ wrote a play about … [Read more...]
Young Writers and Stickers = Sticker Stories
Young writers love to write sticker stories. Buy fun themed stickers to write sticker stories, an idea which YOU can do at home with your own kids. (yeah!) Writing for this activity looks like . . . - writing by ones self with invented spelling - creating a wordless picture book - dictating the story to another writer (me) Materials: Stickers Writing supplies Imagination!! Blank … [Read more...]
Teaching Parts of Speech
Kids do need to learn grammar, especially the parts of speech. Here are some fun ideas for teaching and applying parts of speech in a writing workshop. In my summer writing workshop, I had kids ages seven to ten. Find and Sort Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives First we looked for cool words in magazines. I modeled this and enthusiastically helped kids find awesome words and cut them out. Once we … [Read more...]