Writing is a huge part of the curriculum. Some children love writing stories and others often don’t know where to start. There is so many different things to think of when a child sits down to write;
- Capital letters; at the start of the sentence, for peoples names, for I, for place names
- Full stops, exclamation marks, questions marks, speech marks, commas
- Spelling
- Handwriting
- Layout of work – ruling copy, date, title
- Genre of writing; recount (time connectives), procedure (titles and bossy verbs), story (beginning, middle, end) etc.
For some children this can be too much and can often interrupt the flow of the writing. Free writing gives children the chance to just write!
Children’s choice
Children can choose the topic that they would like to write about. There could easily be 28/30 different pieces of work being completed in the classroom.
Topic
Children can be given a starting sentence, a general topic or idea. This way is a bit more structured. It can be like a journal/diary for children.
Useful Books/Links
I recently bought the ‘642 things to write about – young writers edition.’ This has lots of different prompts for free/personal writing.
Scholastic Story Starters – here.
180 Journal Writing Prompts (Some might not be suitable!) – here
Alex Brands – 20 Writing Prompts for Kids – here
