creative writing prompts for kids

creative writing prompts for kids

Creative Writing Prompts for Kids

1. Introduction

This writer’s goal in these prompts was to give the children a fact or a little bit of information on which to base a story while leaving the specifics and interpretations to the child’s imagination. This way, the child is made to think and imagine different possibilities and scenarios based on the same simple information. He has used the prompts successfully with children, though there were many times when he was the one asked to provide the next day’s batch. It is his hope that you enjoy this method and share it with a younger mind.

Encouraging Adults From the time children learn to speak, sonnets and singsong tales are taught to them as if they were facts of life. It is what is said and it is what must be done. The emphasis on getting it right is ingrained from the start. Often the best way to get a child’s imagination going is to show them that you are not bounded to a set way of thinking and that you are willing to exercise your own imagination. If they see you pretending to be a king, a cardboard sword for a scepter, rulers and subjects will soon covet the idea. Go with the flow of their ideas. Remember that their drives are not the same as ours. Simple pleasures to us are events of paramount importance to them. Any interruption to their imagined reality can lead to the loss of interest in what to us would have been a splendid creative opportunity.

This introduction explains a bit about the role of the adult in the process of encouraging creativity in children and what the writer’s intentions were in creating these prompts.

2. Section One: Imaginative Story Starters

It is no secret that kids love to use their imaginations. So ask them to take that imagination and use it to create real stories. For example, suggest they write a mystery story. They can make up the characters and setting, but the action has to involve the solution of a mystery. If you want to narrow their focus, give them a 1-10 sentence mystery that they have to solve by the end of their story. This is a useful exercise to get kids to go through each step of a plot comprehensibly and concisely. Another cool idea to have them try is to write a “what if” story. Kids can think up an interesting or funny possibility and develop a story based on that idea. An example of this is: “What if we suddenly had no gravity?” These types of writing activities are fun, creative, and really get children thinking outside the box.

Moving can be both exciting and a bit intimidating for kids. Help them add creativity to this new venture in their lives. Have them write a welcome letter to the new students who will come to their school. What will they tell them? Or encourage them to write a story about moving to a new place. In this story, have them talk about what life is going to be like in their new home. Let them think about what they want.

3. Section Two: Descriptive Writing Prompts

A Busy Bee Write a description of this busy bee. Where is she (or he) going? What might she be thinking? Try to show a solution with the expression on her face. A Mug of Warm Cocoa Write a description of a mug of cocoa. You may want to start by brainstorming words to describe cocoa (i.e. creamy, chocolate, smooth), and then brainstorm words to describe the perfect mug of cocoa (i.e. mustachio’d, warmth, a feeling of holding happiness). You may want to use your five senses in this writing. The Perfect Snowman Aha, now what is the perfect snowman? Is it huge, greater than you? Or perhaps smaller, so you can give it a hug? Does he have a great big grin made of frozen grapes or maybe even something tastier? Describe what you think the perfect snowman would be and remember perfection means different things to different people! Describe a Scary Place You have just come across a very scary place. This could be a strange castle in the forest, a graveyard, a haunted house…whatever it is it should be somewhere you wouldn’t want to get stuck alone at night. Try and describe the place setting a mysterious, eerie atmosphere with your word choices and sentence structures. Try using personification to give the place an added eerie feel. An Unforgettable Character Write a description of a character that will not be forgotten. This character can be anyone or anything—a man, monster, alien, animal, robot, the decision is yours. What is important is that you use characterisation techniques to give this character personality. You might want to think an unusual or exaggerated features to make your character more memorable, such as a particularly large nose or a foreign accent. Remember: your character description could be the start of a story, so think carefully about the kind of place and story you would expect to find this character in.

4. Section Three: Personal Narrative Ideas

The teacher also says the story should be from a real event, and not from a movie or book. This is when Zack starts to look back to the weekend, a long event that took place where he and two of his friends spend the night at Zack’s house. This eventful overnighter starts Friday after school where Zack, Aaron and Graham are deciding what to do tonight. With many ideas in their mind, they find themselves in Zack’s room wanting to make a prank phone call to a random person. This phone call sparks a joke between his friends. A joke where they find a newspaper from his kitchen and the calling the pizza delivery service giving them a random address of someone on his street and ordering a pizza to be delivered there. The boys thought it was a brilliant idea, so they started preparing where they would stay in a tent in Zack’s backyard and set a specific spot for him to leave money so no one gets hurt. He chooses his detached garage, which leads to an alley, knowing it was a smart choice so the pizza deliverer does not even come to the front door. The prank then really does it happen the exact way they were planning. The weather was off and on rain, so the pizza deliverer didn’t suspect a thing, just he thought it would be tough finding a house number which they predicted as well. The man leave the pizza at the front door of Zack’s neighbors and leaves because he does not want the pizza to get wet. This night just gave a great laughter experience between these kids. A couple months later, Zack and Aaron are at Graham’s house, when they stumble upon an attic with nearly 20 years of old hockey cards. The boys are astonished of the amount of money these cards may be worth, so the Zack is curious and calls a local card store to see if there is a general price for any of the cards they have. Unfortunately, there was an estimated value of only 10-50 cents per card, most of them not worth bringing to the store. But Zack ends up finding 3 tickets to a local minor league hockey team from around 1993. His dad tells him that they won them in a raffle, so he is curious on what the game experience was. Then the idea strikes to contact the hockey stadium and see if the team was even still around, and if they could purchase 3 tickets for that same exact price. This search took a bit of effort but the most shocking piece of evidence was that the team was still around today, just with higher prices for the games. His dad is a fan of hockey and Zack still has an interest in sports, so the boys are planning to surprise Zack’s dad and make a full circle life time experience seeing a game, that started with tickets won from a raffle. This idea is the most memorable plan we have seen anyone do, and it holds a good past history event to add to the creative writing assignment.

5. Conclusion

Writing is a unique way of speaking, and it offers us the chance to connect with ourselves and the world around us in a way that is at once enlightening and freeing. This guide aims to do the same for you by providing you with a series of writing exercises for creative self-reflection. The exercises are designed to help you discover and explore your most authentic self through writing, and to untangle any problems that may be standing between you and a happier, healthier life. Each exercise explores a different theme or aspect of self, and you are free to change the focus or alter the question to best suit your own needs. Remember there are no rules or regulations when it comes to expression, the most important thing is that you are honest with yourself, and enjoy the process. So take a deep breath, relax, and dive into the words on the page. Happy Writing!