Whether it’s the beginning, middle, or end of the year, having fresh ideas in our writing centers will keep students excited and motivated! My students love going to writing center and I’m always on the lookout for new ideas to add to it. Student interest is important and greatly boosts student engagement. When it is my students’ turn to go to writing center, their job is to draw and write in their writing journals the whole time, but I don’t tell them what to write about. It is their choice! I fill our writing center with fun activities throughout the year that help generate ideas when writer’s block hits. Here are 5 activities that are perfect for your writing center!
Kids love stencils! This Super Mega Stencil Kit has a great variety with 12 zoo animals, 12 farm animals, 12 sea animals, 12 transportation and 12 fairy tale fantasy stencils. Students will choose one or two of the stencils from the Super Mega Stencil Kit to draw their picture and then write a story to go along with it.
Tip: Do not put all of the stencils out at one time. By only have a few of the stencils out at a time, you can rotate the stencils every week or so. It’s amazing how exciting it is for students when new options are put out.
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If your students get stuck in their writing, story prompts are a great tool to help spur creativity! These Get to Know Your Class Pocket Dice Cards come with 100 different prompts. I love that these cards have pictures on them too. Just add one into each pocket of the Pocket Dice and students can roll the dice and then use the card as a prompt to write in their journal.
Tip: Keep the story prompt Pocket Dice in your center, but keep it fresh by changing out the cards inside the dice every week. Have a student be in charge of changing them out for you.
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Stickers are magical in first grade. This Super Roll of Stickers has a great variety and is a nice size for illustrations in the writing journals. I’d recommend cutting the stickers ahead of time and limiting your students on the number of stickers they can use so that your supply lasts longer. The sticker becomes part of their illustration and gives them inspiration for their writing.
Tip: Don’t put out all of the stickers at one time. Adding fresh stickers to your center will help keep students engaged and save you from having to find new activities all of the time!
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I love this Imagination Storytelling Scene Frame! Students build their story by choosing a Who, What, and Where slide. When they add the slides to the storytelling box, they see their story come alive! This is great to use once you have taught story structure and students understand that stories have characters, a setting, problems, and solutions. Let your students’ imaginations run wild and inspire creative writing with this fun activity!
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What I love about this story starter kit is that it uses real photographs! The story starter kit contains pictures of 42 nouns for students to choose from. They can pull out 1 or 2 images from the included nylon drawstring bag and use it to inspire their writing.
What stories will your writers create? I hope these activities inspire some great writing for your growing authors and illustrators! Be sure to check out the 5 Writing Tools I chose to spruce up my writing center and keep students excited to write!
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