Week 35: Practice Writing – Write a Book!

Having your kids write their own book is wonderful writing practice! When my son was 5 and waiting for his little brother’s Play Gym class to end, I stapled together a set of these templates that included a picture and a writing space below, and he wrote a book about a train.  On each page he drew a picture of one train car and (with help) wrote some descriptions underneath about what kind of train car it was and what color it was. Some of the train cars had special powers.  I wish I’d saved that book!

These simple templates from The Trip Clip are a great way to get inspired – the small size (half sheet of paper) feels less overwhelming for a new writer, and there’s room for kids to draw pictures along with their story.

You can also print out templates with a center dotted line for really little authors.

There a lots of ways you can use these templates to help inspire kids to write.

One idea is to combine it with a Custom Bingo Board to get the creative juices flowing. I used The Trip Clip website to generate a BINGO board with a random set of images, and then printed it out.

Your child can then pick one or two pictures as an idea to inspire a story, or you can even ask them to pick a row or a column and incorporate all of the pictures they see into their story!

The story templates also work great on trips to help your kids keep a travel journal. Depending on their age, print 1-3 blank templates for each day of your trip, and have them draw pictures and write a little bit about what they saw and did each day.  They’ll have a wonderful memory book of their trip by the end of it.

Teachers can print a stack of these templates for kids to use during free time. Or they can be used for specific writing activities like a Story Retell.

Give it a try. You might be surprised at what your child can dream up!