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Finger Spacing
Writing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
This is a fun creative writing activity for children. Download this sample and template to show children how to create their own choose-your-adventure-style story.
Imagination Box
Fill a box (an old wipes box with a lid works very well) with random small objects. Have children pull out one item at a time, each one using the item as inspiration to add one sentence to a group story. Each child passes the box on to the next, saying, “And then…”
Story Starters
Use these pages to help get students started who just “don’t know where to begin.” It is also a fun way to teach about good opening lines for writing. Here are some ways to help students learn to begin a story in an interesting way with these lines (some of them borrowed from classics).
Writing Hooks
Daily Journals
Writing can be intimidating for many students. Help them to feel comfortable expressing their thoughts with short daily journal entries. Use these printable journal templates to create book journals for children.
Venn Diagram
Have students use this Venn Diagram template to help brainstorm for comparing and contrasting.
Writing Templates
Story Map
Character Map
Writing Pages
Personal Narrative OutlineWriting Lessons
These writing lessons can be squeezed into a week or stretched out to meet students’ needs. Each comes with a rubric for grading, step-by-step instructions for teachers, and clearly laid out pages to guide students.
To help keep each stage of the writing process organized and make sure you know which step a student is on before moving forward, staple together 5 legal-sized manila folders like this and put them up on your writing wall. Students can place their writing pages inside each slot, and you can easily do a visual scan to see who is ready to move on to the next stage.
Use these slides on the board as you teach your lesson on writing a short story:
Use these slides to guide your lesson on the board as students fill in their pages.
Encouraging Writing
Have a publishing party. Put out a special stool or even create a platform to encourage writers to share their works. Ham it up with a lamp shining down on them while the ceiling lights are turned off.
Have classmates write compliments on sticky notes. After each writer has finished sharing their piece, collect the sticky notes and attach them to the work. (Do read these before returning the writing, though, as some children will write uncomplimentary comments.)
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