Kids Creative Writing Tips:

Activities, Ideas And Prompts

Creative writing tips for kids can be just what you need if you've got a reluctant writer on your hands. I know because I had one!

Writing can't be forced but if you have lots of interesting activities, prompts and ideas up your sleeve you are much more likely to find the right spark to light the fire.

The most important creative writing tips I can give you are all about doing anything it takes to get kids wanting to write.

Once the desire is there, everything else will follow.

"The test of good writing, after all, is not whether it obeys "the laws of grammar," but what it sounds like...The fact is, as a glimpse at many a learned journal will make plain, that many of our most highly educated men write extraordinarily badly," (John Holt, How Children Learn.)

I have tried to think of as many ideas and activities as possible which will encourage kids to decide using a pen is fun. You can see lots of creative writing tips and activities in our page on creative writing ideas, including:

• Letter codes
• Journaling
• Lapbooks
• Keeping a kids blog
• Trying out activities around a TOP TEN theme; Top Ten Disasters was one of the prompts which appealed to William!

Creative Writing Tips

It does seem that boys tend to be more reluctant writers than girls. At least that means William wasn't alone! He really hated homeschool English and it was impossible to get him to do anything at all.

So I do understand how hard it is if you're being faced with rotten spidery scribbles - it is difficult when you're confronted so publicly with something which reflects poorly on your child's ability.

But I think the most important in my series of creative writing tips is:

Don't force kids to write if they don't want to.

This is hard advice to follow, and I'm guilty of not being great at this myself, especially when it came to sending Thank You notes!

More Creative Writing Tips

I'm a great fan of prompts and activities which encourage the little and often approach. Using a pen is a motor skill and if you do a little bit at a time you can build up gradually. A short piece is much better than nothing at all.

Another of my creative writing tips is that anything that encourages kids to start writing and feel pleased with themselves will help in the end. What about ideas and activities like mazes? crosswords? or something factual?

Creative Writing Prompts

We've got lots of homeschool creative writing prompts here. See our homeschool ideas for:

• Fantasy maps.
• Scrapbooking.
• Homeschool animations.
• Having a Pet Pal.

Creative Writing Ideas

1. If you want to find good creative writing tips, have a look at what books your kids like reading and use them as prompts to build a story.

   Some simple homeschool ideas to start might help. Can they re-write a chapter in their own words?

   Just to show that this is one of those tips which can work, it might help to know that this was the trigger which finally set Catherine off in our homeschool. Her love of the Warrior Cats series fed into an imaginative leap where she came to create her own adventure.

2. Another of my tips is to try adventure stories. These activities seem to really appeal to kids. In Cheetah Quest four cubs have to lead some cheetahs trapped in a barren country to a new home and on the way they have all sorts of adventures with blood lions, fang leopards, giant worms and snow weasels.

   What adventure stories do your kids like? Can you build some prompts round one of them?

   A good start for younger kids is an adventure picture story. William and Catherine had lots of homeschool fun with lions and spaceships - naughty cubs having adventures turned out to be one of those creative writing prompts which really has kid appeal!

3. Another of my creative writing tips for older kids who really don't want to write is to try out voice recognition software. I haven't tried this personally, but it is one way you could try to overcome a creative writing block. You still have to tell the software to do all the punctuation so you will be practising some grammar and more importantly your kids can get on with being creative and have something to show at the end.

Creative Writing Activities

Exciting creative writing activities can inspire even the most reluctant writer. We show you one of our homeschool ideas called My Life In A Box. Whatever your kids choose to write about: - their top ten likes, their pets, songs - you should find the perfect prompts for all sorts of creative activities. Tips: you could pick a famous person's life instead and see what your kids come up with. We chose James Cameron and that led us to the lands of Avatar and all sorts of creative possibilities.

Encouraging kids is all about inspiring them to take off. I would never have guessed how far Catherine has come; she loves homeschool English and spends every morning scribbling busily away.

I know she is exceptional, but I am sure that if you follow some of the homeschool tips, activities and ideas here kids will get to enjoy writing, even if they aren't as prolific as Catherine (who is now on part Three of her cheetah epic).

A good thing to remember as your kids get older is that, when it comes to exams, it's quality not quantity that counts.

A good thing to remember as your kids get older is that, when it comes to exams, it's quality not quantity that counts. I know that's something which underpins the homeschool writing curriculum which is highly recommended by homeschooling families and leads to the IGCSE English Language and Literature exams.

I hope these homeschool creative writing tips, activities, ideas and prompts will encourage your kids to see how much fun writing can be.

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