Yesterday, to round off our letter-writing activity, we wrote two more letters.One began with 'Dear Reader', and this is an activity I've done more times than I can count. I tweaked it slightly this time because of the idea of posting their letters to them. Instead of telling them that what they wrote would go into books in the library, I told them their letters would go in the mail to someone else in the room. They enjoyed it tremendously!(Here is an explanation of the activity, plus a link to a video you could use.)The second was a letter to a fictional character. I asked the children to choose any fictional character they love, and write a letter, sharing whatever they liked with that character. Among all the letters to Hermione Granger, Tom Gates, Silky (Faraway Tree) et al, here's one letter I found:I couldn't stop chuckling at this! Of course, I'm thrilled … [Read more...]
Making Creative Writing Engaging
Sometimes, I wonder whether secretly, I conduct creative writing workshops more to inspire myself than to inspire the children I work with. Whatever it is, I do know that I enjoy myself tremendously whenever I teach creative writing. I feed off the enthusiasm of the children and I come home ready to write, which is invigorating.Children and WritingMany children love to write. I was one of them, and I wrote all kinds of things, mainly inspired by what I read. I wrote about magic and school, and things that I thought would be moving - like earnest poetry about war and poverty. Writing is fun; it may even be good. But when publishing is so easy, I find that many parents and teachers think everything that children write is perfect. I don't always agree. Here are my pet peeves:Forced rhymeI … [Read more...]