Creative Writing

Our March meeting topic was creative writing, and it was lots of fun! Besides sharing resource ideas, we all participated in a few quick creative games and had a great time. Here are some of the ideas we talked about:

***"Story starters" are just what they sound like and can be a single sentence ("The creepiest story I ever heard was told by my Uncle around the campfire...") or several paragraphs laying out the setting and starting the action of a story. Kids then get to jump in and finish the story any way they want. There are books of story starters, you can make them up yourself, and you can even use interesting pictures as story starters. (use classical paintings and you can cover two things at once!)

***Make your own mad-libs using classical literature or literature that's well known to your child. I can imagine changing a favorite story mad-libs-style could be pretty engaging!

***Prompt your child to write by choosing a classic or well known children's story and prompting them to change something, like the identity of the main characters or the setting or the point of view the story is told from. For example, you could take the Three Little Pigs and ask them to write it from the point of view of the wolf.

***Concrete Poetry is poetry where the words take up a shape, like a poem about Christmas in the shape of a Christmas tree.

***Shared Poetry is writing a poem collaboratively. The first person writes two lines but covers up the first line. The next person can only see the second line while they write the next line, and then they cover up the second line. This continues with each writer only getting to see the line that comes right before the one they're writing until you decide the poem is done. It's fun to see how they turn out, and a very low-pressure way to introduce the idea of writing creatively.

Here are a few books we looked at that you may find inspiring:

Pizza, Pigs, & Poetry: How to write a poem by Jack Prelutsky, children's Poet Laureate
A Kick in the Head, An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul Janeczko
Animals Animals by Eric Carl
Runny Babbit by Sel Silverstein