- Before choosing an activity for your child or classroom, one thing to keep in mind is that you want the activity to be fun. Children are more apt to be interested in the assignment if it is something they enjoy. Making writing fun is one way to catch their interest and keep it.
- Whether you are a homeschooling parent or a public school teacher, you will need to choose a flexible activity that each child can make his or her own. Although creative writing is already a world of endless possibilities because of the diversity in imaginations, it may be more beneficial to assign an activity with few restrictions versus one where you give the children such things as the character, setting and the challenge facing the characters. Remember, children have varying writing abilities and may write a better piece if allowed to devise their own characters and settings.
- One activity fitting the above criteria is show and tell. It is no secret that children love to bring their most prized possession with them to school, talking about it to their classmates. This can easily be turned into a creative writing assignment that is not just individually tailored to each child, but one that they all will enjoy doing. Rather than talking about a favorite teddy bear or toy, they write about it, using descriptive words to describe the way it looks and how it makes them feel. You can even have them build a story around it, using their object as the main character and themselves as another. This is a terrific start to encouraging creative writing in children.
