Writing exercise for toddlers

10 Creative Writing Activities for Kids

Every child will naturally gravitate toward different activities. Some will be enamored by STEM, while others might prefer sports, music, or history. Creative writing however is one of the activities that any kid can participate in and get substantial payoffs for doing so. 

According to UC Berkley’s research, creative writing can boost students’ future academic performance, help them develop a growth mindset, and kindness toward others.

Whether you’re a teacher working with K-12 students or a homeschooling parent, creative writing activities are a net positive for your child.

Let’s take a look at some of them, as well as the perks your kids can gain by participating in creative writing exercises.

There is substantial evidence to suggest that we are at the peak of creativity at a young age. Children make friends more easily, think outside the box, and aren’t scared of speaking their minds despite apparent social norms. 

According to Curtin University research, children experience creative writing in a classroom environment as an exercise in mental self-expression.

By taking away the shackles of “academic writing” and “authorial standards”, creative writing enables kids to truly write from the bottoms of their proverbial hearts.

Melissa Mauro, writer, editor, and an educational specialist at TrustMyPaper spoke on the topic: “Creative writing is not dissimilar to traditional art forms such as drawing or painting in terms of its mental stimulus. Children who participate in creative writing at a young age are likely to develop effective self-expression skills and better academic writing skills than their peers.

Beyond that, kids stand to gain a range of character traits and skills during early childhood through creative writing: 

• Better ELA skills (English and Language Arts)
• Improved imagination and unconventional thinking
• Better self-confidence and communication skills
• Improved ability to solve problems  through thinking
• Encouraged exploration, research, and analytic skills
• Early growth in academic writing sensibilities

1.

Writing prompts are one of the easiest creative writing activities for kids to implement. All you have to do is create a pool of unfinished sentences and assign them to each kid at random.

You can use Scholastic and its story starters if you want to add an element of playfulness to your writing ideas for kids. 

Instruct your kids to write at least a paragraph of text inspired by the writing prompt you assigned to them. This will ensure that each child thinks about the prompt a little longer than usual to come up with a creative solution to the exercise. 

2.

A great creative writing activity for preschoolers and early K-12 students is to learn the alphabet by coming up with words for each letter.

Depending on your kids’ age group, you may have to assist them in spelling each word properly. Once the exercise is done, you can ask each student to read a single word out, and then you can write it on the board.

This is a great opportunity for all the kids to collaborate, expand their vocabulary and learn from one another through a creative writing activity.

Even children who aren’t as excited about creative writing exercises for kids are bound to perk up at the group’s energy and excitement.

3.

Flashcards are a tried-and-tested method of studying, regardless of the child’s academic level. You can teach your kids what flashcards are all about, and you can then create them together as a creative writing activity.

Once you’ve created a pool of flashcards, you can look for matching words and phrases which correlate in some way. Think “light” and “dark”, or “apples” and “oranges”. 

This will keep the children entertained, teach them new words, help them express themselves through writing, and improve their memorization.

Writing ideas for kids such as writing prompts and word rhymes can be created through flashcards you write – keep experimenting with creative writing.

4.

While not strictly a creative writing activity, you can combine other academic fields with writing exercises to keep things interesting. Kids can learn letters, words, and phrases through painting, drawing, sculpting, and other art-related activities. 

Instruct your kids to draw using letters exclusively, or to cut out different letters and then create collages with them.

These can be abstract or realistic, depending on your child group’s age. However, crossing into arts and crafts through creative writing can significantly affect the kids’ creative tendencies for the better.

5.

Spelling songs are as old as time itself, and they work wonders when it comes to creative writing. Use a  spelling songs playlist in your classroom and encourage students to sing along.

Then, you can exercise spelling through the songs you’ve listened to and re-listen them to spot grammar errors. The creative writing activity can extend further, and you can allow kids to come up with their rhymes and songs.

Nancy Howard, SEO specialist, writer, and academic advisor at SupremeDissertations put it this way: “Through music, children can learn to associate letters and words with certain harmonics, instruments, and sound queues. This can improve their learning process in terms of musical arts and creative writing alike – mix them as much as you can.”

Have a child who loves music? Try these Music Games and Activities For Kids to get him excited and

6.

Writing letters to your future self is one of the best writing ideas for kids that you could use in your classroom.

Your kids will most likely already have dream jobs and careers which they hope to pursue in the future. Even though these plans might change, they can still play around with the idea through a creative writing activity.  

Ask them to write a whole letter to themselves 10 years down the line. Where do they live and what are they doing in the future?

Keep these concepts simple so that your kids can understand what you are trying to communicate, and the creative writing activity will bear fruit.

7.

Going back to the idea of merging creative writing with other fields, you can ask your kids to write a critique of an art piece.

Again, use your best judgment when it comes to choosing an art piece for your students to sink into. 

K-12 students may not understand Pollock or Warhol, but they’d be delighted to look at Dutch or Italian Renaissance paintings. Choose the right art pieces for your kids and ask them to write down their thoughts on the painting.

What do they see, and what would they do differently in the artist’s place? This is a great creative writing exercise that will undoubtedly spark your students’ imagination and encourage them to express their thoughts on paper.

8.

You can encourage teamwork and collaboration in your classroom by assigning students into teams of two at random and assigning a creative writing activity.

Ask the students to write a story (with a writing prompt or without) so that each student writes a single sentence at a time. 

This will allow one student to challenge the other with creative writing, which will get more and more imaginative with each sentence. Students can then read each other’s creative writing and compare their essays to others in the classroom.

It’s a great opportunity for students to bond, develop creative competencies, and learn through writing activities for kids.

9.

Challenge your students to think outside the box by introducing writing prompts that address the story’s end instead of its beginning. The obvious example is “And they lived happily ever after”, but you can come up with several versions for your students.  

This writing will ensure that students think differently about their creative writing activity compared to traditional exercises.

It can lead to very inspiring and unconventional ideas, and students will enjoy working on these types of creative writing exercises for kids.

Most importantly, it will keep pushing their creative writing tendencies further and encourage kids to express themselves without worrying about academic writing standards.

10.

As a teacher, you are more familiar with poetry than your students. This allows you to create a word pool of words that rhyme with one another, and you can ask students to create songs and poetry.

Rhymes are a great creative writing activity since students can sing along to the phrases and paragraphs they write. 

One of these can even become your signature classroom anthem, for example. To make things more challenging, you can ask the students to use all the words you’ve assigned in the word pool.

This will teach them about the organization and word count management, traits that will become more important in later academic education.

The fun part of creative writing exercises for kids is allowing them the freedom to complete the assignments in any way they see fit.

Some students may want to create paper collages to complete the creative writing activity, while others may ask you for a dictionary to use.

Be a mentor to your students or kids and don’t discourage their creative tendencies – they will look back at your efforts fondly as a result. 

Author:
Nicole Garrison

Pre-Writing Activities for Preschoolers - WeAreTeachers

Pre-writing activities for preschoolers not only help our youngest learners learn the shape and structure of the letters in the alphabet, but they also serve a number of other functions as well. According to education blogger Lisette, from Where Imagination Grows, pre-writing practice teaches directionality in writing, encourages fine muscle development and coordination, and also helps students process sensory information critical to the writing process.

Here are 22 super fun, easy-to-make activities that your preschoolers will love!

1. Squishy Bags

Source: Learning4kids

All you need to make these awesome sensory bags is resealable zipper storage bags, flour, water, and food coloring. Kids can use cotton swabs or their fingers to draw shapes, lines, and letters on the bag.

2. Bubble Wrap

Source: Coffee Cups and Crayons

What a great way to recycle all that leftover bubble wrap! Simply write letters on sheets of bubble wrap with a Sharpie and let kids pop their way to letter recognition.

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3. Play-Doh Snakes

Source: In My World

Kids can’t resist the sensory lure of Play-Doh! For this activity, kids can roll small balls of dough into long snakes and form letters by bending and joining the snakes together.

4. Play-Doh and Drinking Straws

Source:  KidActivitiesBlog

Flatten out a medium-size piece of Play-Doh on a flat surface. Then use a sharp object to draw a letter on the flattened area. (Make sure that the letter is large enough to be easily recognizable when filled with straws.) Cut plastic straws into one-inch segments. Let kids “trace” the letters with the colorful straw segments.

5. Dot Markers

Source: 3 Dinosaurs

Students use dot markers to practice the mechanics of writing and get used to the angles and curves of letters. Click on the link above to download 12 free pages of pre-writing dot marker worksheets.

6. Cotton Swabs and Paint

Source: Lessons Learnt Journal

This is a fun activity to help kids work on their fine motor skills and get the hang of the all-important pencil grip.

7. LEGO Blocks

Source:  Wildflower Ramblings

Blocks! Young kids can’t get enough of building and creating with them. Put their creative energy to good work with these free printable letter cards.

8. Shaving Cream

Source: Mess for Less

This classic activity is a great starting place for pre-writers. All you need is a tray and a can of shaving cream.

9. Glitter Glue

Source: Growing Hands-On Kids

Pre-writing lines are important building blocks for any preschooler to master before learning letter formations. Download this glitter glue pre-writing line practice for preschoolers activity.

10. Beads

Source: Artsy Momma

Just like the one above, this activity builds fine motor skills that your young students need to begin writing. Instead of using glitter glue, though, students use inexpensive pony beads (found at any craft store) to follow the lines.

11. Sand Tray

 Source: Our Little House in the Country

One of the simplest activities to put together for your students to practice pre-writing is a sand tray. Kids can use their fingers or an unsharpened pencil to practice writing. As an alternative to sand, you can fill your tray with salt, flour, cornmeal, or rice.

12. Squeeze Bottle

Source:: Playdough to Plato

Fill a plastic squeeze bottle with salt or sugar and let students trace letters on cards.

13. Rainbow Tray

 Source: Where Imagination Grows

This resource is so simple to make, and kids love it! Simply tape colored tissue paper in a rainbow pattern to the bottom of a clear plastic tray. Fill it with sand, and as the kids trace lines and letters, the colors below are revealed. The image above shows the tray on top of a light table, which adds another dimension of fun to the activity!

14. Masking Tape

Source: And Next Comes L

A roll of colored masking tape and a clear surface make this a fun center activity at writing time.

15. Magnet Board

Source: Days with Gray

Tape letters onto a magnet board and let your little ones trace them with magnets. In the example above, the teacher made the letters into roads, and the students drove their car magnets along them.

16. Lacing Cards

Source: Teaching Mama

Grasping a string between tiny fingers and threading the end through the holes in a lacing card is great fine motor practice for preschoolers. It also begins to build muscle memory for holding a pencil properly.

17. Buttons

Source: Learning4Kids

Preschoolers will have so much fun creating patterns, swirls, squiggles, and zig-zags with colorful buttons. And they’ll be building skills while they’re at it!

18. Sticker Line Up

Source: Busy Toddler

Preschoolers need to use a pinching motion, which builds fine motor skills, to peel sticker dots off the page. Then, they use hand-eye coordination to place each sticker on the drawn line. This activity would be perfect for a writing or free time station.

19. Fingerprint Writing

Source: Happy Toddler Playtime

Some kids may not like to get their fingers this messy, but others will adore it! For this activity, you will need poster paper and a palette of washable ink. Draw letters, shapes, and lines on a clean piece of paper. Then, show kids how to dip their pointer finger onto the ink pad, then follow the lines dot by dot.

20. Clothespin Clipping

Source: Teaching Mama

Using a clothespin takes a lot of grip strength. This image shows a student using a clothespin to choose the correct answer to a number problem, but any activity that involves clipping will help them build the fine motor skills required for writing.

21. Cutting

Source: Play of the Wild

Cutting and snipping activities with scissors are excellent ways for children to practice fine motor skills and control. Give your students lots of opportunities to practice their cutting skills with paper, string, card stock, even Play-Doh!

22. Scrunching Paper

Source: Gympanzees

Scrunching paper into a ball is great for building hand strength. Let your students use computer paper, newspaper, tissue paper, or wrapping paper. Then play a game of paper ball tag!

What are your favorite pre-writing activities for preschoolers? Share in the comments below.

Plus, check out these amazing Sensory Table Activities.

Games and exercises for the development of speech for children from 4 to 7 years old

Games and exercises for the development of speech for children from 4 to 7 years old

The first block

We develop understanding and use of grammatical structures in speech

1.Learning to understand the two-step instructions

Place a row of objects in front of the child. The child completes your tasks:

Show the doll with a ruler, and then the ball.

Show the plate and cup with the doll. nine0003

Show a book with a pen and then bring it to me.

Show a pen with a book, take the ball and put it next to the cup.

Bring me a cup and show me the plate with a ruler.

If the child showed correctly, ask: “What did you show? What did he show?"

According to your instructions, the child should draw on paper:

2 circles and 3 sticks.

3 blue squares and a red circle.

Yellow triangle and 3 blue circles.

2 sticks on the left and 5 on the right.

You give tasks once, and if the child does not remember, repeat again. In case of difficulty, the instruction can be divided into 2 parts: first, the child draws 2 circles, then 3 sticks with your hint. It is very important to teach the child to pronounce his actions, encourage him to do so.

2. Selection of words-names of objects using counting sticks.

For each answer, the child receives a token (or a counting stick).

What can be opened? (Answer in full sentence: “You can open the door. You can open the jar. You can open the book.”)

What can be lifted?

What can be pushed back?

What can you get?

Encourage the child's imagination.

3. Learning to understand and use prefixed verbs in speech.

Prefixed verbs are verbs formed with the help of prefixes.

Your task is to consolidate the child's ability to feel the difference between the verbs "driving", "drove", "moved off", "moved", "drived around". Many children do not distinguish between these verbs by ear and in meaning. Play a car game. Have your child do the actions you say, “Make the car drive into the garage. I drove around the house, crossed the road, ”etc. All buildings made of cubes must be prepared in advance. When the child confidently follows your instructions, you yourself make the same movements with the machine. And the child answers the question: “What did the machine do?” - nine0003

"The car drove around the house." If it's difficult, help the child. On the street, watch the transport (at the same time remember the names of the vehicles), what did the trolleybus, truck, dump truck, etc. do.

Similarly, play with the verbs “came up”, “passed over”, “passed over”, “entered”, “left”, “bypassed”. Ask the child “Do you think I will say the same words or different ones?” (bypassed, passed). The same with the verbs: “pour”, “pour”, “pour”, “pour”. All these actions are shown by you and the child. It is necessary that the child answers you in full sentences, or at least repeats them after you: to the question “What did I do now?”, The child answers: “You washed your hands”, and not in one word “washed” or “washed”. nine0003

4. Learning to understand and use plural nouns in the genitive case.

Stick pictures in pairs, eg hundred-tables, house-houses, etc. At least 5 pairs. First, the child names these pictures (“This is a table, and these are tables”). Pay attention to the child how the endings of words change.

Game "One - many": the child names the pasted pictures (one table - many tables, one bucket - many buckets).

Then play with the ball. You throw the ball to the child and say any word in the singular. The child returns the ball back and changes the word. Adding the word "many": tree - many trees, leaf - many leaves, closet - many closets, bee - many bees, chair - many chairs. Sparrow - a lot of sparrows, a bucket - a lot of buckets. nine0003

Game "Correct the mistake": you say a deliberately wrong sentence, and the child hears the mistake and corrects it.

There are many trees in the forest.

There are many tigers in the zoo.

The kid ate a lot of sweets.

There are many pencils in the box.

There are many books in the library. (Some sentences are better not to distort, let the child think).

Constantly monitor the use of plural nouns in the genitive case in the child's speech. This grammatical category usually causes many difficulties. nine0003

5. We learn to understand and use certain prepositions in speech.

Prepositions TO AND FROM

Find the pictures. Suitable in meaning to the prepositions IN and FROM. Ask the child to show the picture that can be said about with a small word "B". And then - with a small word "FROM". You can use the term "preposition": "The fish swim in the aquarium", "The girl looks out of the window. "

The child makes sentences on these pictures, highlighting prepositions with his voice: "The boy left the house." Ask them to think about how these prepositions differ (they are opposite in meaning). nine0003

Instruction game. The child completes your tasks, each time voicing what he did:

Put the ball in the box. (I put the ball in the box.)

Put the spoon in the pot. (I will put the spoon in the saucepan.)

Take a handkerchief from your pocket. (I took out a handkerchief from my pocket).

Talk about animals and birds. The game "Who lives where?". The child, looking at the pictures in the book with animals and birds, makes sentences:

The bear lives in a den.

The wolf lives in a hole. nine0003

The squirrel lives in a hollow.

The starling lives in the birdhouse.

Watch for the use of the preposition B in the child's speech, this preposition often falls out of sentences. Insist on an exaggerated pronunciation of the preposition B during your classes.

Read to the child any poem or passage, for example, S. Mikhalkov “It was in the evening ...” Ask the child to listen carefully, and then name those sentences where he heard the prepositions IN and FROM (for example; “And from our window, Red Square is visible ... And we have gas in our apartment ... And you?). Choose any of your choice. nine0003

Prepositions FOR - BECAUSE OF

Game. The child claps his hands only when he hears the preposition BECAUSE. You use a series of prepositions: ON, UNDER, IN, BECAUSE OF, FOR, TO, FROM, FROM UNDER…

Following instructions. You give the child the task to put one object after another; “Hide the ball BEHIND the car. Where is the ball? Then you give the task to get the ball from behind the typewriter. Ask: "Where did you get the ball?". Play with other toys the same way.

Exercise "Insert the missing preposition". You pronounce a sentence by skipping (not naming) a preposition. The child thinks which preposition is suitable and says the whole sentence: “the ball rolled up . .. the closet”, “the hare looked out ... the tree”, “the boy hid ... the door”, “the sun appeared ... thuja”, etc. nine0003

6. Learn to understand and correctly use masculine verbs in the past tense.

Find pictures of a boy and a girl; your child comes up with action words that refer first to the boy in the present tense: “Think about what the boy is doing now?” (walks, sleeps, plays ...). “Now imagine what he does yesterday?” (Walked, slept, played). Also practice with a picture of a girl. Draw the child's attention to how the ends of the words change: walked - walked, slept - slept, played - played. All sentences are spoken in full. You can use dolls instead of pictures - a boy and a girl. nine0003

7. Learning to ask questions to pictures.

Game “Ask a question” based on pictures with a girl and a boy: “Let's play a game as if you are looking at the picture and don't understand what the girl was doing. Ask me and I will answer. How will you ask? (“What did the girl do?”, “What did the boy do?”). With subject pictures, practice asking questions “Who is this?”, “What is this? (apple, cat, bird, fish, notebook, table) depending on animation. Your task is to teach the child to consciously ask a question, to develop a sense of language. Encourage him in this work. nine0003

8.Learning to understand what a "suggestion" is.

Ask the child to name any word. Mark this word with a dash on a piece of paper. Also with 3-4 words. Get a series of dashes. “Now you spoke words, and I drew a diagram from your words.

Word - dash, word - dash. But when you name words not just like that, but with meaning, for example, you talk about something, then this is called a sentence. Make a sentence using this picture, and I will draw a diagram of it (for example, “Winter has come.” Scheme: _______ ... _______). The same - with a number of proposals. nine0003

A game for developing the ability to speak in full sentences with the conjunction “to”. Put 6-7 different items on the table: scissors, soap, pencil, plasticine, spoon, hat, etc. First, you take any object, give it to the child and say: "I want you to take soap and wash your hands." Then the child takes any object and also asks you or a member of your family taking part in the game: "I want you to take scissors and cut paper."

9. Learn to understand and use cases correctly. nine0006