One of the easiest and painless ways to approach writing in the early years is to encourage writing that naturally occurs throughout life. Ideas for writing abound when you keep your eyes open for them.
Real-Life Writing Ideas
Here are some things my 7-year old wrote on her own in the space of a few weeks. We need to fill out quarterly reports in our state, so I keep a list of the writing my daughter does and use that list in our reports.
- A cleaning list
- A new ending to a book
- Cards for each member of the family
- A speech for spring
- Short books about the life story of her brothers and herself
- A morning speech/song
- A sign for her door
- A recipe
- A card trying to convince a friend to come to Sunday school
Here are more ideas I’ve come up with just by watching the writing that naturally occurs in our home.
- Write stories or poems to submit to a magazine. We love Nature Friend Magazine for this.
- Write letters to a friend or family member.
- Fill out a postcard.
- Write a grocery list.
- Make a menu for a real or a pretend restaurant.
- Create labels for a pretend store. You can work math into this one, too.
- Make a sign for selling things next to the road.
- Write a “thank you” card for a recent gift or event.
- Write a letter to the author of a book that you enjoyed. My daughter did this on her own and received a letter in response.
Longer Writing Projects
- Keep a diary.
- Keep a nature journal.
- Create a newsletter to send to family. We used Canva to format this. Your child will enjoy picking photos to go with the articles.
- Write a book. My daughter is in the middle of writing a book based on a series she enjoys.
- Write a persuasive paper about why you should do something as a family. (Get chickens. Join the Bible Bee. Go out for ice cream. Take a vacation. The possibilities are endless.)
- Write tutorials. My older children enjoyed repairing electronics so they put together some repair guides that we posted on our Kindle website.
You might be thinking that your child doesn’t write on their own, and not all children do, but even they will most likely balk less at writing if the writing has a purpose.
Ask your child if they can write a grocery list while you’re busy with something else, and then make sure you let them know how helpful they were. Have them write a “thank you” card for a gift that they received. Real life examples are numerous, and writing with a purpose is much easier than writing found in a workbook.
I hope these writing ideas are helpful to you as you work on writing skills with your children. Do you have any that you would add?
You may also enjoy: Tips for Teaching Writing.
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