Entries Tagged 'Writing Games & Activities' ↓

Here’s a fun activity to do with your primary-age children (K-3rd) to introduce the concept of nouns.

What are nouns?

Talk about nouns with your kids and discuss the three main noun categories.

Common nouns name people, places and things. Unless they begin a sentence, common nouns are not capitalized. Examples: man, toy, cereal, coffee shop, country

Proper nouns name specific things, and must be capitalized at all times. Examples: President Bush, Legos, Cheerios. Starbucks, United States

Collective nouns (also called group nouns) describe a set or group of people, animals or things. Examples: army, family, audience, flock (of sheep), bunch (of flowers), school (of fish), team (of baseball players)

Note: Making a noun plural does not make it a collective noun. The word cows is a plural noun / the word herd (of cows) is a collective noun.

Make a noun mini-book

1. Fold a 9” x 12” sheet of construction paper in half.
2. On the first page, add a title: “My Book of Nouns.” Below the title, help your child write a definition of common noun, proper noun, and collective noun.
3. Title the inside left page “Some Common Nouns,” the inside right pge “Some Proper Nouns,” and the back page “Some Collective Nouns.”
4. Once your child has labeled her mini-book, give her a few old magazines or catalogs. Ask her to cut out five pictures for each category, glue them in place on the appropriate page, and label the picture with its name.

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

There’s nothing quite like a writing warm-up or game to put some fun into writing and get the creative juices flowing. Whether you’re teaching young children or teens, writing games serve an important purpose in the writing process.

Spend five or ten minutes a day gearing your kids up for writing with some of these enticing activities!

Five-Word Stories

This is a great group activity to play with several children at home or with a co-op or class group.

Directions: Each person begins with a 5-word prompt and then adds exactly five words of his own. Pass papers in a circle. Each time the papers are passed, players add exactly five words to the story in front of them in round-robin style. When you’re ready to wrap things up, tell the kids to begin bringing their stories to a close. Finally, pass the papers one last time so players can add their last five words to the ending.

Five-word story prompt ideas

• Once upon a time there . . .
• The mystery began when the . . .
• In a kingdom far away . . .
• Once, long ago, a tiny . . .
• Last week, while digging in . . .
• Today was far from normal!

Word Association

Another fun family or group exercise!

Directions: Each person begins by writing a word on a piece of paper. When you exchange papers. Read the word the other person wrote and write down the very first word that comes to mind. Don’t think, just write! Keep exchanging and adding to the list! Here’s one we did with our family. See how each word connects to the next?

dog - Casey - baseball - diamond - sparkling - cider - apple - pie - sky - clouds - storm - thunder - lightning - flash - Gordon

Unrelated Words Game

Directions: Write two unrelated words on a white board such as fish and trampoline or stapler and zucchini. Ask your kids to write sentences using both words. Repeat several times.

For older kids, write up to ten unrelated words and have them create a silly story using as many of the words as possible. 

Messing with Modifiers

This is a great vocabulary-building exercise for all ages.  Don’t think this activity is beneath your teenagers! The thesaurus will help them come up with some challenging, advanced word choices.

Directions: Ask students to write the letters of the alphabet down the side of a sheet of lined paper. Next, have them leave a blank space followed by a noun that begins with each letter. Finally, tell them to go back and add an adjective in front of each noun. If you want to give points, add an extra point for alliteration (using the letter of the alphabet for both the noun and the adjective).

Example (younger child)

A - _______ apple
B - _______ beaver
C - _______ cat

A - crunchy apple
B - busy beaver (extra point for alliteration - b/b)
C - purring cat

Example (older student) 

A - _______ argument
B - _______ borrower
C - _______ collection

A - abstract argument (extra point for alliteration - a/a)
B - delinquent borrower
C - haphazard collection

These activities barely scratch the surface of the wealth of pre-writing games you can use to tickle your kids’ writing fancy. I’ll post more in a week or two!

Meanwhile, you’ll be happy to know that both WriteShop Primary and WriteShop I and II include pre-writing activities to enhance each lesson. With September just around the corner, order soon so you have time to get acquainted with your new materials!

Looking for a clever way to target common spelling words and build vocabulary? Invite your younger children to make a picture dictionary.

This creative activity combines the fun of making scrapbooks with the skill of learning to write new words. Plus, it’s so much more meaningful when your kids’ personal dictionary reflects their own interests and vocabulary!

First, help your child label loose-leaf pages A, B, C, etc. and insert then into a three-ring binder. Next, encourage him to find pictures of things that are interesting or meaningful to him.

Suggestions

• Family members and pets
• Favorite foods and snacks
• Familiar household objects and furniture
• Vehicles
• Facial expressions (happy, sad, mad)
• Articles of clothing
• Toys
• Colors
• Action words (run, sit, eat)

Using scissors, your child can cut out pictures from outdated calendars and magazines, old photos, or other sources. Alternatively, he might use stickers of some of these familiar objects. Have him glue each picture onto the appropriate dictionary page (a chair on the C page, for example), adding more loose-leaf pages as needed. If your child can’t find a picture of a word he wants to include, suggest that he draw a picture of it directly on the page. Once he’s added an item, help him write the word or name below the drawing.

It’s OK if the child doesn’t fill the book evenly. Even if he makes five A pages before he has created a single page for X, that’s fine. After all, even in a standard dictionary, certain letters have more word entries.

Older children 

To make the book even more like a dictionary, your third or fourth grader can add a brief description or explanation for each item.

For more writing ideas, see the Writing Games & Activities category. And keep checking back, too. I’ll try to post a fun game or exercise every week or so.

Happy writing!

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

Does your reluctant writer hate journaling, dictation, or narration? Do you need a way to encourage him? Try becoming your child’s pen pal!

This activity is best for children in the 8- to 12-year-old range, but you might also try it with other writing-phobic kiddos who live at your house.

Getting Started 

First, buy an inexpensive spiral notebook or composition notebook. If a colorful or thematic cover helps to wow your child, so much the better. Otherwise, a plain one will work just fine. Begin by writing a prompt at the top of the first page. Here’s a good place to start if you need ideas.

Tell your child there are no rules, no right, no wrong. She must simply write about the given topic and express herself however she chooses. No critiquing is allowed!

At first, don’t expect much. All she may give you is lists! But eventually she’ll begin to write more, especially if she finds the prompt particularly appealing.

Turning the Tables

Next, let your child choose a prompt for you on the next page so you can write back to her. Offering her the chance to ask you questions can give her the sense of fairness and control. Who knows what she’ll want to know!

As your child’s confidence grows and she becomes more willing to write, you’ll start to get glimpses into who she is and how she thinks. Plus, you’ll have a treasure of recorded “conversations” between the two of you.

Give it a try!

. . . . .

Kim Kautzer is co-author of the WriteShop program. Visit writeshop.com to learn more.

When Debbie and I taught junior high and high school writing classes, we made sure that part of each class was spent in play. No one is too old for games! Besides, pre-writing activities help to prime the writing pump and get those creative juices bubbling! So we played word games, sentence-building games, and games that built vocabulary or taught writing skills.

Not all writing games require pencil and paper. One of our favorites is “What’s in the Bag?” It’s a guessing game that fits many levels of sophistication, so it’s adaptable to all ages, and it’s great for reinforcing the concept of concrete or descriptive writing. Here’s how to play:

Advance Prep

Gather together several paper lunch bags, each containing a common object. Vary the textures and shapes of the objects.

Directions

1. Give your student one of the paper bags and have her put her hand inside it. 
2. The student must describe the object by its properties, not its function. So tell her: ”Feel the object and describe it using adjectives or other phrases to describe its characteristics. Don’t tell me where to find it or how to use it.”  (If the object is a fork, the student might say, “It’s hard, cold, made of metal, sharp, one end has four prongs, it’s long and thin,” etc. She may NOT say, “You eat with it, you stab food with it, it’s in the silverware drawer,” etc.)
3. You and your other kids can take turns trying to guess the object.
4. Since students of all ages can play this game, involve your whole family or class. They’ll enjoy taking turns guessing and describing.

Hints and Tips 

• If you only have one student, it’s harder to play along if you already know what’s in the bags. So ask your spouse to put some bags together the night before so that you’ll be surprised along with your child.
• If your child is young or unable to articulate very well, you can help him get started by showing him 10-15 household objects such as a wire whisk, grater, can, roll of tape, small stuffed animal, camera, comb, or toothbrush and helping him think of descriptive terms for each one. The next day, use some of these items in the feely bags. Now that he is familiar with descriptive words for each item, it will be easier for him to play the game.

Copyright © 2008 Kim Kautzer. All rights reserved.

“What’s in the Bag?” is one of many pre-writing activities and writing games tucked into the pages of WriteShop and WriteShop Primary.

What’s this?

A curious porcupine hears, “Help! Save him!” . . . and it’s coming from the pantry? A forgetful robin flies into a car and gets separated from his family? What kid wouldn’t love to write a story filled with such intrigue, mystery, humor, or whimsy?

Continue reading →

If the Gathering of Adjectives game seems too advanced for your K-2nd graders, you may enjoy using this simplified adjective-building activity with them from WriteShop Primary Book C.

Make a Willy Worm Word Wall

First, cut out about a dozen 3-inch circles from construction paper to make a Willy Worm Word Wall. Tape the circles together in a row to form a worm. Mount the worm on a wall or place it on a countertop. Draw a smiley face on the first circle to represent the worm’s face. On the first three blank circles, write various describing words (adjectives), one word per circle. Use words such as small, fast, yellow, soft, or bumpy. Continue reading →

When we were homeschooling, I absolutely loved writing across the curriculum with my kiddos. It was such a natural way for them to write about the very things we were studying for history, geography, or science.

I’m excited to share one of our family’s favorite writing exercises—journaling with a twist—where kids write first-person diary entries as if they were someone (or something!) else. This is a great activity for kids of all ages—kindergarten through high school, pre-writers or prolific, reluctant or motivated. Continue reading →

A couple of days ago I talked about the importance of helping your children develop their writing vocabularies through the use of writing games and word banks. Here’s an activity that serves both purposes: It’s a vocabulary-building game that helps your kids create word lists of their own—specifically, a gathering of adjectives. You can play this game with students of all ages. Continue reading →

A student who writes from a rich supply of words learns to express herself exactly as she intends. At the same time, she makes way for her reader to understand subtle shades of meaning.

Word Banks 

Word banks are such great tools for helping kids expand their writing vocabulary. When a student is tempted to reuse a familiar word because she can’t think of any others, a word bank can prove helpful by reminding her of alternative words she already knows but can’t quite pluck from the edges of her mind. Continue reading →