Writing Prompts For Kids
School is ending (more or less) and with it comes the fun, warm summer months. But what if you want to help your kids keep learning, inspiring their imagination and creativity this summer? Well, there’s a simple and quick way to help them stay creative: writing prompts.
Using writing prompts to drive some daily writing is a terrific way to practice writing and build a great habit around creativity.
Why Writing Prompts?
Teachers have been using prompts to drive writing exercises for years for good reason. Prompted writing avoids any kind of block or stumbling over what to write. Instead, focus is squarely on how to write because the what is included in the prompt.
With a single sentence, the prompt can kickstart writing with little or no time wasted thinking about what to write. Likewise, writing prompts build on each writer’s imagination as the prompts take them all in different directions. Particularly for young writers, prompted exercises work on the fundamental elements of writing like sentence structure while stimulating the imagination.
Writing Prompts For Your Kids
Using Writing Prompts
The prompt will define a situation or set of elements that lend themselves to a story. Have your kids read the prompt a couple of times, maybe even out loud once just to really wrap their mind around it.
Along with creating a situation, the writing prompt should loosely direct the writing. It doesn’t need to say “write about this” or be rigid, but a direction will help guide their writing.
Writing prompts fall into a lot of loose categories too. From expositional prompts that ask your kids to build a scene, to narrative prompts that start a story. There’s lots of great information about the different kinds of writing prompts and how to use each out there.
Get Creative
Writing prompts are just one way you can inspire young writers. And during the summer months when your kids are far from the normal day-to-day of school work, it’s a great time to reinforce creative habits. And if your kids are really feeling inspired with all these amazing writing prompts, get them started publishing with a Lulu Junior book-making kit!
