If you’ve ever had your classroom Skype with me or had your students enjoy my online learning lesson, you know I stress communication, creativity and collaboration. This allows teachers an avenue to get their students out of their routines and exercise their creativity muscles.
Writing allows us to communicate effectively. When children learn how to write, a whole world of possibilities opens up for them. I like to encourage them to learn to tell a story and then put their thoughts down in a journal, write a poem, a letter to a friend, or a short story. While there are basic rules and formats to follow when learning how to write, writing can also be creative and imaginative.
If you follow me regularly on my mission to instill a love of reading and writing in young children, you know that I also love to provide FREE resources for classrooms. Thankfully many companies that support literacy also provide an ample supply of free resources from research for teachers to activities for students. Children’s book authors are another amazing resource, as they also love to share with their young audiences. So here is my round up of writing resources for your classroom!
I especially love this YouTube series from author Jess Keating on writing. Your students will love listening to this author. They are short so will hold their attention and each video lesson gives them an action to do.
Author Josh Funk, has a “Want Fun stuff” for kids link on his website. There you will find activity kits and coloring pages. I adore the Dear Dragon activity sheer. It let’s students write a pen pal letter.
Read your class an author or illustrator interview from one of their favorite books. Mackin Educational Resources has a wonderful list. The one from Duncan Tonatiuh: From Comics to Codex is sure to catch the attention of your class. The first line in the interview starts “I became interested in writing when I was in elementary school.” Also consider having an author visit your classroom via Skype. After you’ve read one of these interviews, you can have your class practice writing some questions they would ask their Skype visitor.
Kids love music so why not encourage them to write a song. Need some research as to why? Check out this blog from Cantata Learning. You can also sign up for a song of the month to keep the creativitiy flowing all year long.
Here is a whole list of great ideas from Tales2GO, my favorite audio book company. One of their many ideas is to have students - “Write an original story based on characters in the book”.
Comics are very popular with kids, so give Professor Garfield’s free site a look. Under the Create button you will find the Comic’s Lab. Students can write, assemble and print their own comic strips.
Here is a great link from Scholastic called 25 Way to Get Kids Writing.
I would be remiss to not point out a few of the resources I have on my FREE website and YouTube Channel. Bookmark my Teacher Page to have everything in one spot from my video playlists to the supporting blog posts.
Be sure to bookmark my Back to School FREE resource roundup to inspire creativity and literacy in the classroom. Remember my motto, “If you can tell a story, you can write a story”.
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