The 25 Greatest Writing Prompts you Need to Make Kids Love Writing Now
Writing is my passion and I believe in using quality writing prompts for kids or daily writing prompts. I can sit and write for hours on end, if I’m left alone and there are many children for whom writing is their love, too.
While your children are out of school, for an indefinite period of time or their school will be closed for the rest of the school year, for some states like Kansas schools and California schools, I want to help to make sure that their writing skills are being maintained over the next few weeks or months. Are you one of those families who chose to homeschool or are faced with distance learning this school year? Well, this fantasy writing prompts for kids will come in handy.
I also want to make sure that those students who love writing are receiving opportunities to write with guidance and support as best as possible. Using or providing writing prompts for kids or daily writing prompts is one way of doing this.
Before I jump into writing prompts for kids, one thing I would highly recommend is using some type of explicit grammar and writing instruction. It could come from your child’s teacher or from an online learning resource.
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The one that I love and use with my K-5th grade students is Noredink . It is separated into grade levels and topics, allowing students to get support in the exact skill they need it in. Another reason I love Noredink is you can assign writing prompts for kids and the program will also score it for you.
Outside of instruction and skill/topic practice, students need to be writing. They need daily writing practice to continue to build on their writing skills. Daily writing prompts are one way of ensuring that kids continue to make progress as writers. As anyone who cares or knows about writing will tell you. You become a better writer by writing.
If your child or students are anything like mine, many of them don’t like to write, so you have to make writing as appealing as possible. Normally, they are more open to fantasy or fiction writing prompts and are a bit more reluctant with non-fiction writing prompts.
To help with their reluctance or lack of confidence, regardless of the genre of writing we’re working on, I normally read from a mentor text to them first. A mentor text is a book that does an excellent job using whatever skill that is being worked on or studied in writing.
Mentor texts are helpful because they give children a clear idea of what good writing, using that skill or skills, should be like, so they can tell when they’ve met the mark.
For example when working on adding or using descriptive details, I read All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan. In this book, the main character describes the childhood farm where he grew up and reveals that he has many different places that he loves because each place is important to different people and moments in her life. Here is a collection of the best mentor texts to teach narrative writing if you have a child who loves to write and would like to learn more about narrative writing.
My students love when the mentor text that I have chosen was written by me, because they get to learn more about my life, but they also love it even more when I select a mentor text that was written by a fellow student. A few weeks ago as we worked on persuasive writing, I selected two essays that were completed by students and used it to model or show others how they had met or exceeded expectations.
Some of our other favorites authors we love for mentor texts include Mo Willems, Eve Bunting and Patricia Polacco. Mo Willems is also an illustrator and is hosting free tutorials in drawing. If your budding author is also a budding artist, you should let them participate.
I am providing a lot of suggestions for narrative writing because it is a student favorite and is the main genre we focus on in lower elementary grades. Once students have a good foundation in narrative writing, it is usually easier for them to move on to completing informative, persuasive or opinion writing.