Ways to Add Writing as an Activity With Your Kids

One of our challenges is having one boy who loves to read so much we have to take books away to get

Beetles and the Zoo, ripe candidates for stories and poems.

him to do things (so he can continue reading). Our other boy more physical and loves to help or do chores (when phrased the correct way).

Now, neither of or boys want to really write. Ask them to do homework involving writing and it can be hell to get that work done.

Some things they both love are games, modeling what Mom and Dad do, and joining in to do things as a team. So, how do I harness that to get more writing happening at home?

I am not so much concerned with them doing the homework as much as I want to get them so into writing as just something they do that the homework is an afterthought for them and they just do it. Remember, practice makes perfect and stretching that writing muscle helps improve it.

The ideas for this post started flowing when I wrote a post on my Svbtle blog, called 10 Ideas: Party Themes. The 10 Ideas series is something I started recently where I try to take a couple minutes each day to quickly come up with a topic and then 10 ideas for that topic. I am doing it as a writing exercise myself to flex my writing muscle and get my brain running in the morning.

So, what have I come up with for the boys?

1. Start a Poetry Writing Circle with the boys.
1. We pick a topic.
2. Discuss it a bit.
3. Then decide to write 2 lines each for the poem we build as a team.
4. Once we get the hang of it we can start to work in poem styles and aim for funny/sad poems.
5. Key here being each of us writes down our lines of the poem.
2. Start a mini-version of my 10 Ideas.
1. Pick a topic.
2. Discuss some ideas around that topic (Forms of transport to get from home to Grandpa's house or Ways you could catch a fish.)
3. Have each person write down 3 ideas for the topic.
3. Journaling
1. I did a couple as a kid for school.
2. Set aside a time for us all to write in our journal about our day or yesterday.
4. Have them write down the best thing that happened today.
5. Have them write down something they did today that they want to do again.
6. Have them write down something nice they did for someone else today.

Those are a couple ideas I am going to start trying with the boys. Hopefully by the new school year we will make this such a habit they will find written homework a breeze.

Kids: Word Scramble Game

My 5 year old had a homework assignment to make 10 words from leprechaun. He had fun with this and was amazed at how many words we could come up with.

What was also fun was seeing him become comfortable with "playing" with letter order and combinations. So we have started to do this with other words.

Just this morning we came up with over 20 words from our last name, Thistle. Like this from thistle:

• this
• is
• I
• his
• sit
• list
• title
• let
• heist

This is a fun game to get kids excited about playing with words. Give it a try.

Are you reading to your kids? No I mean, really reading to your kids to foster Creative Writing skills?

I have been informed by my boys teachers that they need to either be read too (my youngest) or be more creative thinkers (both).  Like what?  They have vivid imaginations and we read to them every night (seldom does a day go by that we do not read 3-10 books with them).

So, what is up?

We read to them but we are not always analyzing the book and breaking it down.  For my youngest, this means asking him to explain:

1. What happened in the beginning of the story?  Who is the story about?  What is the location and situation?
2. What happened in the middle?  What as the problem that occurs to the characters?  How did you think they might solve this?  (Ask that last one in a new book only part way through when the problem is presented and watch their imagination run wild, you hope.)
3. What happened in the end?  Was that good for the characters?  What would you do?

So, ok, we are reading but are we reading and analyzing the books in depth?  I would have to say no.  So that is something that has been added to our routine.  The number of books has gone down but the quality of our reading will go up I hope.

For my older son, he has to cover the same issues but we need to ask more open ended questions so that he can come up with creative answers to them.  We have a couple books that ask such questions at the end and I will lean on those a bit.

So far that has gone well.  Only tired that a little bit so far.  What can I say, we are more math oriented parents.  Math comes easier to us and hence the creative writing/thinking is something I am struggling with a bit.

I'll post more as I find other things that work with this area.