Exploring Creative Writing With Your kids

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Whilst writing is a great educational activity, it is also a fun way to develop your child’s creativity, increase their vocabulary and improve their handwriting skills. As parents we can help to nurture ours children’s imaginations by exploring creative writing activities at home. Teaching our children how to let their imaginations come to life on paper, creating stories and tales that you can then read together. 

To help you get started here are some simple creative writing tips from Manor Lodge School…

Regular reading 

Reading goes hand in hand with writing. Try to read with your child as often as possible in order to improve your child’s vocabulary and grammar skills, as well as introduce them to a variety of literary genres. Reading together could mean you reading to them, them reading to you or even you reading together, perhaps a page or chapter each. 

Try to read a variety of books including fiction and non fiction so kids are really able to get a feel for what books they really love and the topics and subjects that spark their imaginations. 

Re-write an ending 

For your first creative writing activity, ask your child to create a new ending to their favourite story. Together you can explore how some simple changes to the storyline, could lead to a completely different ending. This is often a great way to start creative writing as children often find starting a story the most tricky part. This way the story is already created for them but the ending us up to them. 

Choose a favourite topic 

When practicing creative writing, it is important to choose a topic that really interests your child. This will help them to enjoy the activity and keep them motivated to learn as they write. It is also much easier to write about a topic you have personal experience with. This is why its important to try and read a range of different books together when reading as it will allow children to explore different genres, themes and stories. 

Mind map 

Once your child has chosen a topic, help them to ‘mind map’ words that relate to it. A good way to do this is by asking your child to think about how their topic affects their senses. For example, a story about the rainforest might include seeing tall trees and feeling hot and humid. Creating a mind map can also help your child to imagine characters for their story. This can really help children who are more visual learners and can be a great visual tool to refer back to even once they have started writing to gather a little more inspiration. 

Get started 

Finally, one of the hardest parts about writing a new story is the first sentence. Help your child to get their story started by looking at other stories for inspiration. The first line should always try to grab the reader’s attention, so try to include lots of descriptive words. But other than that, the real beauty of creative writing is to let your child's imagination run wild. 

Do your children enjoy writing or creating their own stories? 

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**This is a collaborative post.**