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Encouraging Creative Writing

Encourage creative writing. Children are full of ideas. We see this in the games they play, objects they create, and their chatter to their friends and adults. But when asked to write a story, many freeze : "I don't know what to write about!" is the usual cry.

Posted on Wednesday 13th May 2015

Creative Writing Tubs

“I don’t know what to write about!”

As teachers, we may need to explore this constantly heard comment because it is often the children’s way of saying many things, including:

  • I don’t know how to write a whole story – that’s too overwhelming
  • I can’t spell
  • I have so many ideas that are all in a muddle in my head
  • Writing is so boring and slow
  • I never know how to finish a story

To help with these issues why not consider some of these:

  • Let the children gain inspiration by browsing through a range of different types of books.
  • Play classical music and allow children’s mind to wander. Tell them to jot down ideas that creep into their heads.
  •  Let the children create a writing folder full of ideas, words, photographs, colours, textures that inspire. The folder can be an ongoing project in that the children use it as their “Ideas Folder”
  • Go on a sensory walk. Ask the children what they can hear, smell, taste, see and touch. Back in the classroom, create a Sensory Walk poster. It might have crunching leaves on it. Next to the leaves place words that describe them-wrinkled, crinkled, scrunched, folded-and indicate what they sound like (e.g., crispy, snappy).
  • Have a jar of lollipop sticks with themes and topics of interest written on to spark writing ideas.

Inspirational ideas to encourage writing