Your child has an incredible imagination. He is always playing make believe and telling creative stories. He will spend hours immersed in imaginative play with whole worlds and characters he has created.
Now your child has learned how to read and write, and you can’t wait until he starts writing some of the stories you know he has bottled up in that brain of his.
So you ask him to write a story for his language arts work that day.
You know what happens, right?
He stares at the blank page. He slumps at the table, and the pencil suddenly weighs so much he can’t even pick it up.
Have you been there before?
Creative writing is a tough skill to learn. Even with our most creative kids, writing stories takes a tremendous amount of practice and skill, and it can be really overwhelming when kids are just starting out.
Because our kids are constantly playing make believe and making up their own stories, we expect the writing down of these stories to be easy when it really isn’t.
When my oldest was struggling to write more than a sentence or two, I came up with a creative writing game that had her writing five times as much as she normally did.
How does it work? It’s simple!
The Line-by-Line Game
The game is basically a storytelling collaboration that takes some of the pressure off your child.
A blank page that needs to be filled can be an intimidating thing!
This game basically has you, the parent, get the ball rolling and keep it going.
Here’s how it works:
Take a sheet of lined paper and tell your child that you’re going to write a story together. You will start by writing the first 1-2 sentences.
Now that the story has its beginning, your child will add the next 1-2 sentences of the story.
Kids love this because they can take the story in any direction they want without having to come up with a whole storyline.
After your child has written a sentence or two, it’s your turn again. Keep taking turns until you have come to a good ending point.
It’s your job to guide the story and keep it interesting. This also helps you control how long the story is.
You can wrap it up once you feel your child has written enough or you can draw it out if you want him to write more.
I’ve found that the game gets kids to write much more than they ordinarily would when working alone.
They love having the power to change the story, and you have the ability to add things to the story that will inspire your child to want to write more.
If you have a child who really struggles to write more than a few sentences, give the Line-by-Line creative writing game a try. You’ll be amazed at what your child is capable of!
And the best part is, that with this practice your child will see what he’s capable of.
Turning a difficult task into a game has a way of taking the pressure off and making it less intimidating. Once the intimidation is gone, the skill will come much more easily.
Want to see how I turned reading practice into a fun game? Check out my post on reading scavenger hunts!
