Creative Writing Ideas:

Kids Activities, Prompts And Tips

Creative writing ideas are just the antidote you need if you're faced with a reluctant writer. I know, because I had one!

But if you can find the right activities and prompts to tempt your kids you can succeed where school often fails.

The trouble with school English assignments is that they often start the wrong way round.

I am always struck with how boring are most of the topics kids have to write about.

Maybe that sounds harsh and teachers try their best; but no one can deny that the English activities and ideas your kids are given are probably not what they would have chosen themselves.

Yet it's that very desire to write that's the key to learning English.

In school, your kids will be given a heavy dose of grammar and taught all the 'techniques' to use. Chances are, they won't come out unscathed! You can help them by using homeschool creative writing activities and prompts to get them wanting to write; once they have got there, everything else will follow.

Creative Writing Ideas For Kids

When I started teaching homeschool writing, I had an interesting problem on my hands: William hated it! And I am quite sure I am not alone; there's a lot of research to show that boys are being left behind.

The good thing about this is that you can help with English by suggesting lots of creative writing activities and ideas which will ignite the wish to write.

One of the best creative writing ideas I've found is to encourage your kids to start writing stories. Once you've planted the seed and writing becomes something your kids want to do all the other English skills will follow.

Here are some of the creative writing prompts story worksheets that have been a hit in our homeschool:

All About Me
My Best Pet
Pirates Ahoy!

A Baby Dinosaur
My Best Holiday
Keeping Baby Dragons

Click on each thumbnail and they will open in a new window as a free printable pdf.

You'll see lots more story ideas for all ages in our page on free writing worksheets. Invent your own Animal Ark story, meet an alien and tell us How To Keep Dinosaurs!

You can adapt the length and difficulty of the activities depending on age and ability. One of the most important tips I can give is to try lots of creative writing ideas and see which one grabs.

If you want some help with a long distance course which helps encourage creative writing and leads towards an IGCSE English Language and Literature exam, have a look at this homeschool writing curriculum which comes well recommended by homeschool parents.

Creative Writing Tips

• Keep creative writing activities short.
• Don't fuss over spelling and grammar; the most important thing is that your kids feel pleased with what they've done. Leave perfection for another day; the best way for you to help with English is to realize there's plenty of time to learn once they've decided they want to.
• Find more homeschool creative writing tips here, and you'll see one of my best tips is to follow the 'little and often' approach.
• With boys particularly, organized facts and lists seem to go down well.

Creative Writing Ideas To Help With English

1. Invent a letter code and send it to your kids friends. This is still popular with William and Catherine in our homeschool. Tips: You can even use it as a way to help teaching homeschool math by adding in a number code too!
2. Journaling. Keep a homeschool book where you write all your thoughts and feelings - great for getting creative with English activities! Catherine's is marked: 'Top Seacret' - I'm not allowed to see it so I can't correct the spelling! You can use creative writing prompts for tips to help with ideas; what if your child pretends they're a cat for the day?
3. Lapbooks. A great way to encourage creative writing ideas for kids up to High School if you pick the right topic and two which might inspire are our homeschool dinosaur lapbook and life in the rainforest. Imagine you were an orangutan and the loggers were coming...
4. Lists of Facts. This is a winner with William; anything from specifications of planets to the homeschool parts list he needed when he was learning how to build a robot. It can get very creative if you include fantasy planets!
5. Get your child to write a story in speech bubbles. It is no co-incidence that cartoon books like Asterix are so popular! Tips: Very useful to help encourage English activities because you only need write short sentences at a time.
6. Try some exciting creative writing activities. We show you some ideas to spark your child's imagination, starting with My Life In A Box. See what your kids choose: poems, songs, their worst summer holiday - whatever they think of, you should find the perfect prompts for all sorts of creative writing!



7. Draw a homeschool fantasy map and label all the countries and terrain. Shark pool and dragon mountain would be fun. You can see lots more about maps and lots of other ideas for creative writing prompts here, where I'll cover lots more homeschool activities to encourage writing, including scrapbooking, animations and writing to Pet Pals.

More Creative Writing Activities

• A good motivation to help with English is if your kids writing will be read by their friends! Tips: We had a lot of success with a homeschool book review kids blog; it doesn't matter how short the review - it's exciting to see it up on the web!
• One of the very good writing prompts would be if your kids would like to keep their own blog or contribute to a website. If they want, ask them to write for this one by telling me about their favorite crafts for kids.
• Daily Diary. Tips: This can sometimes become a little boring if it only consists of facts, as you'll see if you look at Catherine's diary entry in our homeschool scheduling, so see how it goes.
• Favorite recipes. This may not seem very creative, but actually it helps a lot with English spelling and vocabulary, and if you have a kid who loves to cook, as William does, it's a great way to build on an interest in food.

Creative Writing Prompts To Help With English

This is one of those fantastic creative writing prompts which appeals across the age ranges.

These creative writing ideas and prompts are based on the tremendous popularity of the TOP TENS series of books and the TOP TRUMPS kids card game.

1. Younger children can make their own set of TOP TRUMPS and teach themselves math and writing at the same time! You can see how in our page on homeschool Second Grade Math Activities. All you need do is pick a topic like Birds or Fish, choose your TOP TEN favorites and then rank them out of ten. Tips: Choosing categories as prompts like killer rating always seem to go down well with kids!
2. You can progress onto more homeschool writing activities which help with English based on these ideas. William's first homeschool creative writing project was: TOP TEN DISASTERS which build on his interest in The Titanic and death through exploding volcanoes. Tips: Again, choosing exciting categories as prompts to help creative writing ideas makes all the difference; William's Favorite and Loss of Life worked well!
3. I agree that boys tend to be more reluctant writers than girls, but I don't think every girl would have chosen Catherine's TOP TENS. The creative writing prompts that appealed to her imagination were: TOP TEN FANTASTIC BOMBERS and TOP TEN FIGHTER PLANES. Tips: Whatever subject prompts your kids to start writing will help their English; in fact you'll be amazed what vocabulary they learn.
4. Moving into High School, we're now onto Erin Hunter's Warriors series and have just completed a fantastic in depth coverage of the TOP TWELVE WARRIOR CATS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND SERIES. What an endorsement of the success of encouraging kids with creative writing ideas!

Final Tips: Teaching writing can be a test of patience!

Take a deep breath and try not to push; writing will come in time. That's a rule I found very hard to follow, as you'll see if you look at my page on problems with Homeschooling.

If you're still struggling, I have lots more activities and prompts which will help your kids English with creative writing.

You can also have a look here at www.creativewriting-prompts.com. Debbie has a great site with lots of useful prompts, tips and ideas to help with essay writing, journaling and even thank you letters. You'll probably find her site best for creative writing ideas from High School upwards. In fact, Debbie may well succeed in getting you writing too - which would be a perfect way to encourage your kids!

Creative writing ideas are the best way to help kids get inspired with English.

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