Engaging and Enriching Writing Activities for Kids5 min read

Writing is one of those things that could mean very different things to different people. It could either be fun, interesting and engaging, or boring, daunting, and stressful.

Well, if you ask us, then the best way to make writing engaging and enriching for your kids is to include fun writing activities that will encourage them.

Here are some engaging and enriching writing activities that will help your kids fall in love with writing:

• Contents

  Toggle

  Write and illustrate a picture book

No matter how old you get, nothing is more inspiring and exciting than seeing your own words in print. Why not encourage your child to write, design and illustrate his own picture book?

You can sit down with your child and decide on the plot and the characters for the book. Encourage your child to come up with as much as possible for the picture book. The plot will have to include some problems in the story, and a solution that the characters find.

After your child finishes writing his story, he can go ahead and illustrate it.

Your kid can write on normal printing sheets too, it doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. Write the short story, draw a few pictures and just staple, tie or bind everything together. Don’t forget to keep the front page for the title of your story!

Homemade books are super fun to make if you have artsy kids. You could also get blank books with or without hardcovers.

• Write a play

This is not very different from writing a short story. Your kids will have to come up with the plot, characters, setting and think about whether they want their play to be a comedy or a tragedy.

Encourage your kids to collaborate with their friends, siblings and even neighbors to perform their play after they have written it.

The joy and pride of creating and producing a whole play (even if it is nothing complex) will help your kids to fall in love with writing like nothing else!

Give them an ample amount of time to complete their play. You could spread it out over a month – the first week to come up with ideas, plot points, characters and a rough outline, the second week for writing the play, the third week to make changes, edit and rehearse the play, and the fourth week for rehearsing, making props, finalizing costumes and the grand finale at the end of the week.

• Keep a journal

Keeping a journal is such a great practice. A journal is a place where your kids can keep a written record of their thoughts, feelings, dreams, memories, events, trips, hobbies and so on. Kids can keep a personal journal to write about anything they’re interested in. For instance, they can journal about their favorite family holiday or a fun school trip that they had.

They can also journal about their favorite movie and/or book characters or different types of insects and birds they spot in the locality.

Your kids can add pictures, drawings, doodles, stickers and so on to their journals.

• Leave hidden messages around the house

Hidden messages have a knack for creating excitement, especially in kids. Leave tiny post-it notes in the fridge or a short letter under your child’s pillow.

Similarly, challenge your kids to leave fun, short and exciting messages for others around the house. They can leave notes and letters in the car, on the fridge, in their siblings’ backpacks, in the candy jar, on the bathroom mirror, under pillows and so on.

You could even make a game out of this. Challenge everyone to find the most creative hiding spot in the house.

You could always make a mailbox with your kids for members of the family only. Messages, notes and letters can be ‘mailed’ and ‘delivered’ through this mailbox.

This is a fun activity; one that your kids will undoubtedly enjoy.

• Find a penpal

Even in today’s world of instant messaging and emailing, the pure joy of receiving handwritten letters and postcards still remains!

Encouraging your kids to write letters to other kids around the world is a great way to help them improve their world geography as well as to make writing exciting for them!

Your kids can ask their friends, relatives, classmates and even neighbors if they would like to be pen pals.
Your child can reply promptly when he receives a new letter from his pen pals. The letters don’t have to be super long or perfectly written. Just a few paragraphs will do perfectly well! Your child can talk about anything interesting that he’d like to relate to his pen pal. What’s important is having a regular exchange.

• Write a comic strip

Push your kids to write their own comic strips. If your kids are already into comic strips, then it’ll be an even more enjoyable activity for them. They can let their imagination go wild and use real people as inspiration for characters in their comics.

Maybe if your kids want, they could even go on to write a whole comic book! And why not? Let them go for it! This is a great way for them to learn more about character, plot, and other aspects of literature like foreshadowing and backstory.

Writing comic strips and comic books is an awesome way for kids to write without any stress whatsoever.

We hope these activities help to keep your child engaged in writing!