It’s a rainy day and, as I write, my kids and some of their friends are pulling odds and ends out of our “junk” box. Plastic cups, corks, ribbons, cut up plastic cupcake containers, pipe cleaners , googly eyes, pom poms…I can’t wait to see what they make.
Earlier today, we wrote stories using a game I learned in a writing class. The kids had a great time and came up with some fun stories.
We cut index cards in half and made three piles: one labeled P/A (person, animal), another pile marked P (place), and a third labeled T (thing.) Then, I had the kids think of things to write on the cards. For example, for P/A, they chose words like pirate, snow leopard, astronaut, princess, witch. For P, they chose the moon, the bottom of the ocean, a coral reef, and an island among others. T, things, included a magic mirror, a basketball, a tornado and a time machine.
Finally, we shuffled the piles and each kid drew one card from each pile. Using their three cards, they made up a story. My son managed to make a single sentence story each time. He’s an avid reader but hates handwriting. The older girls made up longer, more fantasy-like stories and my 7-year old daughter decided to wait until tomorrow to make up her story.
If you have a young child, help them make up a story using the cards or their favorite super-hero or book character. Write down their stories on white paper with a sentence or so per page, staple the pages together and have them illustrate their story. When they were younger, our kids wrote many stories about Nemo’s adventures at Horseshoe Lake. Kids’ homemade books are great keepsakes and grandparent gifts.
Don’t put pressure on your child to complete their story, or even write one if they don’t want to . Just give them the opportunity to think of one. They may come to you two days later with a story they made up in their head. Once again, it’s the process, not the result that matters. Just plant the seed.
Check out what they made while I blogged-alien terrariums!
Tags: creative writing, kids
Creative Mama 
August 22, 2009 at 9:04 am |
too cool, Liz! Wish I could’ve seen the butterfly. I don’t know that we have milkweed here or even Monarchs, but I’m going to check. Mostly I’ve seen cabbage moths and flies lately! I love your blog. Think I’ll steal your creative writing idea and adapt it for my high school creative writing class. Patti
August 28, 2009 at 1:39 pm |
[…] prompt on her blog. She has fantastic ideas for keeping your kids busy with creative projects. This one is a perfect FUN writing exercise that doesn’t actually have to be written down. You can […]