Hello, my dear, spooky colleagues & parents!
This short post will share some ideas on how you can use the Halloween writing prompts in your classroom or home to promote writing and boost creative skills in your students/children!
How can you get the creative juices flowing?
Indeed, writing prompts have come a long way from the days of, “Describe what you did on your summer vacation.” Educators now recognize that a poorly chosen prompt can frustrate or turn off the writing juices, while a well-chosen writing prompt can inspire and thrill. The best of today’s writing prompts are creative, stimulating, and produce good efforts—even from reluctant writers.
Time4Writing
How do writing prompts help a child develop its writing skills?
Writing prompts made by teachers are always developmentally appropriate for the age group and they are also always open-ended. This is the sole reason why are writing prompts promoting creativity – you are giving an idea to the child and the child is completely free to imagine whatever it wants! Some people may think that that is putting ideas in a child’s head and suffocating its creativity, BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE AT ALL. You’d be surprised to see so many different stories – completely unrelated that can be developed only from one writing prompt.
How can you use these writing prompts?
There are around 10 pages in this writing prompt pack, and they all have a creative, imaginative story the students should finish. They are not everyday prompts with questions like What costume do you want this Halloween. They mostly present some problematic situations, with fairytale motifs, where children should solve an issue. Let the child select their own writing prompt to boost their creativity and let them draw, take it home, and bring it back once they have the story.
The secret society of cats sent me a letter. Someone is trying to steal Halloween and they need my help to solve it!
Just one of the writing prompts from the pack
Some extension activities after writing
- Start by letting the children read out the story to the rest of the class;
- While one child is reading, the other children can dramatize the story and be actors!
- Let the children make costumes for their story as an extension activity with their parents.
- After they read, give them a task to underline verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc.
- Have them draw their main character;
- Print it out and make a book cover for the story;
- Have everyone write a title for their story. Print the titles and cut them up into tiny strips. The children should collaboratively match every title to a specific story.
- Have the children switch the papers and every child can invent a new ending for the story.
- Let the children vote on the best story and make a little radio drama out of it!
PLEASE DO NOT PRINT THE FIRST PAGES OF THE WORKSHEETS
TRY TO USE DRY ERASE POCKETS SO THAT YOU DON’T WASTE PAPER AND THAT YOU CAN REUSE THE MATERIALS AGAIN. Thank you!
What do you think about using these Halloween writing prompts to promote writing? Do you have some other fun ideas on how can these Halloween writing prompts be used? If you do, please write in the comments or contact me via the contact page/messenger button at the bottom right corner!
