I don't always believe that writing prompts that come out of nowhere can always help our kids gain stronger writing skills. But, I do believe that high interest books can prompt kids to want to write! I've frequently written about books and the writing prompts I've given as a homeschool mom and co-op teacher. Here are the things I've written about on my blog. Many of these ideas have printables included. Others simply discuss great books and how writers can learn from a concept therein.
These prompts are for little kids who are just starting out writing. They may want to put their own words into sentence frames, but sometimes they will need adult assistance with the writing. These are basic writing ideas and prompts, but they could be lots of fun.
Because these writing ideas are a little bit more complex, it may require a planning step before the kids write down their final draft. Or, maybe these writing ideas deal with slightly more complicated figurative language or language concepts. At any rate, these have been fun for my kids in the second and third grades.
Even upper elementary kids love to practice writing with picture books!
The first two years of my homeschooling career, I taught an elementary level writing class at my son's co-op. Here are the essentials I needed for our writing center so the kids had the freedom to brainstorm, write, and/or even edit their writing.
I hope these writing prompts and lessons help make writing a bit more approachable for you as a teacher or homeschooling parent!
In Tia Isa Wants a Car and A Chair for My Mother, kids work towards earning money for a goal. Although they are very different stories, the goals of the main characters make them perfect for a lesson in comparing and contrasting. The ultimate goal setting lesson from these books is also a great character
Read MoreThe Red Book by Barbara Lehman is a wordless picture book, so it may not be the first to come to mind when considering a book to “read aloud” to a class. However, because the illustrations tell the story, The Red Book can be an ideal book to use as students practice outlining and retelling
Read MoreI had a lot of fun considering favorite picture books as I considered the variety of ways one could organize a story. So many times in elementary school kids are given a prescription for writing and they must follow that. Obviously many stories follow a traditional structure with a clear beginning, a middle, and an
Read MoreFor our writing class, we compared the perspective of the two characters in A Tale of Two Beasts, beginning with a Venn diagram to brainstorm. A Tale of Two Beasts by Fiona Roberton is an amusing tale about a girl who finds a strange beast in the woods and brings him home to take care of him.
Read MoreTo encourage my children to write more often, I’ve tried to make sure I have a writing center easily accessible to them in our school room (which is also our playroom). As we make writing a fun part of our days, my children get handwriting practice as well as practice writing from their own creativity
Read MoreI’m always excited to find picture books that would work well as writing prompts for elementary school kids, so I was extra excited to find Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle by Joseph Coelho (Candlewick, 2023). This new volume has stories that are each, as the title suggests, just ten-words long. With a variety of illustrators
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