Procedural Writing:  Students write letters, notes, lists, ads, etc.

Picture Prompts: (Materials: basket/box/container, coloring book, crayons, pencils, different types of writing paper, construction paper) Buy a coloring book that contains pictures and no words.  Students choose a picture, rip it out, and write a story based on that page.  Once they have completed their story and have colored their picture, they can mount both pieces of work onto a folded construction paper to give it the look of a "book".  Teachers can laminate each completed work and create a class book (once the whole class has had a chance to create a story) to be put in the library.

Writing Packets: Make a list of words based on a topic, such as baseball, Christmas, homework, etc.  Staple that list on the front of a large, clasp envelope.  Add paper and pencils inside the envelope.  Place packets in a basket.  Students choose a topic and write a story using the words listed.  Busy Teacher's Cafe now has these writing packets for you to download!  Click here for more information!

Poetry Prompt: Similar to a picture prompt.  Find poems for students to read.  Students then write about any connections they have made to the poem.  Or, create prompts (questions) to go with each poem for them to respond to.

Paragraph Order: Copy the sentences of a paragraph on individual sentence strips and place them in an envelope.  On the envelope, write directions that explain how to do the activity.  The goal of this activity is for students to learn how to put sentences in order to form a paragraph.

Genre Writing: Student write in different genres (biography, persuasive, fictional, etc.)

Journals: Students can write entries in their journals.  Take a look at our monthly journal calendars!

Story Starters: Story starters for writing short stories.