Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Ways To Get Children Interested In Writing

There are many ways to spark imagination in a child. Here are a few ways to get those creative juices flowing even in the youngest children.

“What if”
Start by asking a “What if” type question and see what they say. Example:What if it really did rain cats and dogs?
What if you could fly? (Where would you go? What would you see?)

Give them a fill-in-the-blanks sentence. Example:
The ________ _______ down in a ________.
animal action word place
___________ put a _________ in the __________ and it _______________.
name object place action


“What happened next?”
Start telling a story. Then have each child in turn add to the story.
These are fun, especially when you have several children. Go around the circle continually adding to the story.

Take it a step further...
Record the story. You can type it out and have the children illustrate it.

Hope these ideas got your creative juices flowing. Have fun, and if you have any other ideas, please share. I promise to give you full credit.

posted by Joy Delgado
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find that "writing prompts" are great. A teacher friend of mine highly recommends Chris Van Allsburg's "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick." I remember doing a writing project based on the prompts in that book when I was a kid.

Showing kids really interesting photos, either full of action, mystery, or fun, is another neat way to inspire a writing session. They use the photos as a jumping off point for their own stories.

Joy said...

Thanks Christina for stopping by. I have used the picture idea myself in a course I'm taking. It's interesting to see the different stories that come from one picture. I'll have to look up Chris Van Allsburg's book. Thanks.

Joy