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Creative writing prompts – Best activities and resources for KS1 and KS2 English
Fed up of reading 'and then…', 'and then…' in your children's writing? Try these story starters, structures, worksheets and other fun writing prompt resources for primary pupils…
Jump to section:
- Writing with choice and freedom
Creative writing resources for the classroom
Creative writing prompts.
- Improving creative writing
- Overcoming the fear of creative writing
What is creative writing?
According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, ‘creative’ is ‘producing or using original and unusual ideas’, yet I would argue that in writing there’s no such thing as an original idea – all stories are reincarnations of ones that have gone before.
As writers we learn to be expert magpies – selecting the shiny words, phrases and ideas from other stories and taking them for our own.
Interestingly, the primary national curriculum does not mention creative writing or writing for pleasure at all and is focused on the skill of writing.
Therefore, if writing creatively and for pleasure is important in your school, it must be woven into your vision for English.
“Interestingly, the Primary National Curriculum does not mention creative writing or writing for pleasure at all”
Creative writing in primary schools can be broken into two parts:
- writing with choice and freedom
- developing story writing
Writing with choice and freedom allows children to write about what interests and inspires them.
Developing story writing provides children with the skills they need to write creatively. In primary schools this is often taught in a very structured way and, particularly in the formative years, can lack opportunities for children to be creative.
Children are often told to retell a story in their own words or tweak a detail such as the setting or the main character.
Below you’ll find plenty of creative writing prompts, suggestions and resources to help develop both writing for choice and freedom and developing story writing in your classroom.
How to develop opportunities for writing with choice and freedom
Here’s an interesting question to consider: if the curriculum disappeared but children still had the skills to write, would they?
I believe so – they’d still have ideas they wanted to convey and stories they wanted to share.
One of my children enjoys writing and the other is more reluctant to mark make when asked to, but both choose to write. They write notes for friends, song lyrics, stories and even business plans.
So how can we develop opportunities to write with choice and freedom in our classrooms?
Early Years classrooms are full of opportunities for children to write about what interests them, but it’s a rarer sight in KS1 and 2.
Ask children what they want to write about
Reading for pleasure has quite rightly been prioritised in schools and the impact is clear. Many of the wonderful ideas from The Open University’s Reading For Pleasure site can be used and adapted for writing too.
For example, ask children to create a ‘writing river’ where they record the writing they choose to do across a week.
If pupils like writing about a specific thing, consider creating a short burst writing activity linked to this. The below Harry Potter creative writing activity , where children create a new character and write a paragraph about them, is an example of this approach.
If you have a spare 20 minutes, listen to the below conversation with Lucy and Jonathan from HeadteacherChat and Alex from LinkyThinks . They discuss the importance of knowing about children’s interests but also about being a writer yourself.
'The confidence Crisis in Creative Writing.' Lucy and Jonathan chat with Alex from @LinkyThinks https://t.co/VClYxiQhcf — HeadteacherChat 🙋🏻♂️ 👂 (@Headteacherchat) August 9, 2022
Plan in time to pursue personal writing projects
There are lots of fantastic ideas for developing writing for pleasure in your classrooms on The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s website .
One suggestion is assigning time to pursue personal writing projects. The Meadows Primary School in Madeley Heath, Staffordshire, does this termly and provides scaffolds for children who may find the choice daunting.
Give children a choice about writing implements and paper
Sometimes the fun is in the novelty. Are there opportunities within your week to give pupils some choices about the materials they use? Ideas could include:
- little notebooks
- a roll of paper
- felt tip pens
- gel pens
Write for real audiences
This is a great way to develop children’s motivation to write and is easy to do.
It could be a blog, a class newsletter or pen pals. Look around in your community for opportunities to write – the local supermarket, a nearby nursing home or the library are often all good starting points.
Have a go yourself
The most successful teachers of story writing write fiction themselves.
Many adults do not write creatively and trying to teach something you have not done yourself in a long time can be difficult. By having a go you can identify the areas of difficulty alongside the thought processes required.
Treat every child as an author
Time is always a premium in the classroom but equally, we’re all fully aware of the impact of verbal feedback.
One-to-one writing conferences have gained in popularity in primary classrooms and it’s well-worth giving these a go if you haven’t already.
Set aside time to speak to each child about the writing they’re currently constructing. Discuss what’s going well and what they could develop.
If possible, timetable these one-to-one discussions with the whole class throughout the year (ideally more often, if possible).
Free KS2 virtual visit and resources
Bring best-selling children’s authors directly into your classroom with Author In Your Classroom. It’s a brilliant free podcast series made especially for schools, and there’s loads of free resources to download too.
More than 20 authors have recorded episodes so far, including:
- Sir Michael Morpurgo
- Dame Jacqueline Wilson
- Michael Rosen
- Joseph Coelho
- Lauren Child
- Frank Cottrell-Boyce
- Benjamin Zephaniah
- Cressida Cowell
- Robin Stevens
Creative writing exercises
Use these inspiring writing templates from Rachel Clarke to inspire pupils who find it difficult to get their thoughts down on the page. The structured creative writing prompts and activities, which range from writing a ‘through the portal story’ to a character creation activity that involves making your own Top Trumps style cards, will help inexperienced writers to get started.
Storyboard templates and story structures
Whether it’s short stories, comic strips or filmmaking, every tale needs the right structure to be told well. This storyboard template resource will help your children develop the skills required to add that foundation to their creative writing.
Ten-minute activities
The idea of fitting another thing into the school day can feel overwhelming, so start with small creative writing activities once a fortnight. Below are a few ideas that have endless possibilities.
Character capers
You need a 1-6 dice for this activity. Roll it three to find out who your character is, what their personality is and what job they do, then think about the following:
- Can you draw them?
- What questions would you ask them if you met them?
- What might their answers be?
- If they were the main character in a story, what might happen?
Download our character capers worksheet .
Setting soup
In this activity pupils Look at the four photos and fill in a mind map for one of the settings, focusing on what they’d see, hear, feel, smell and feel in that location. They then write an ingredients list for their setting, such as:
- A dollop of calmness
- A drizzle of a beautiful sunset
- A generous helping of a still ocean
- Copious amounts of smooth sand
- A spattering of lush, green palm trees
Download our setting soup worksheet .
Use consequences to generate story ideas
Start with a game of drawing consequences – this is a great way of building a new character.
Next, play a similar game but write a story. Here’s an example . Download our free writing consequences template to get started.
Roll and write a story
For this quick activity, children roll a dice three times to choose a setting and two characters – for example, a theme park, an explorer and a mythical creature. They then use the results to create an outline for a story.
Got more than ten minutes? Use the outline to write a complete story. Alternatively, use the results to create a book cover and blurb or, with a younger group of children, do the activity as a class then draw or write about the outcome.
Download our roll and write a story worksheet .
Scavenger hunt
Give children something to hide and tell them they have to write five clues in pairs, taking another pair from one clue to the next until the 5th clue leads them to the hidden item.
For a challenge, the clues could be riddles.
Set up pen pals. This might be with children in another country or school, or it could simply be with another class.
What do pupils want to say or share? It might be a letter, but it could be a comic strip, poem or pop-up book.
You need a log-in to access Authorfy’s content but it’s free. The website is crammed with every children’s author imaginable, talking about their books and inspirations and setting writing challenges. It’s a great tool to inspire and enthuse.
There are lots of great resources and videos on Oxford Owl which are free to access and will provide children with quick bursts of creativity.
Creative writing ideas for KS2
This free Pie Corbett Ultimate KS2 fiction collection is packed with original short stories from the man himself, and a selection of teaching resources he’s created to accompany each one.
Each creative writing activity will help every young writer get their creative juices flowing and overcome writer’s block.
WAGOLL text types
Support pupils when writing across a whole range of text types and genres with these engaging writing packs from Plazoom , differentiated for KS1, LKS2 and UKS2.
They feature:
- model texts (demonstrating WAGOLL for learners)
- planning guides
- writing templates
- themed paper
Each one focuses on a particular kind of text, encouraging children to make appropriate vocabulary, register and layout choices, and produce the very best writing of which they are capable, which can be used for evidence of progress.
If you teach KS2, start off by exploring fairy tales with a twist , or choose from 50+ other options .
Scaffolds and plot types
A great way to support children with planning stories with structures, this creative writing scaffolds and plot types resource pack contains five story summaries, each covering a different plot type, which they can use as a story idea.
It has often been suggested that there are only seven basic plots a story can use, and here you’ll find text summaries for five of these:
- Overcoming the monster
- Rags to riches
- Voyage and return
After familiarising themselves with these texts, children can adapt and change these stories to create tales of their own.
Use story starters
If some children still need a bit of a push in the right direction, check out our 6 superb story starters to develop creative writing skills . This list features a range of free story starter resources, including animations (like the one above) and even the odd iguana…
Use word mats to inspire
Help pupils to write independently by providing them with helpful vocabulary sheets that they can pick and choose from when doing their own creative writing.
Download our free creative writing word mats here , including:
- Create a spooky atmosphere
- Write an adventure story
- Describe a character’s appearance
- Describe a character’s personality
- Describe how a character moves
- Describe how a character speaks
- Describe a mythical beast
Creative writing pictures
Using images as writing prompts is nothing new, but it’s fun and effective.
Pobble 365 has an inspiring photo for every day of the year. These are great inspiration for ten-minute free writing activities. You need to log in to Pobble but access to Pobble 365 (the pictures) is free.
Choose two pictures as prompts (you can access every picture for the year in the calendar) or provide children with a range of starter prompts.
For example, with the photo above you might ask children to complete one of the following activities:
- Continue the story using the story starters on Pobble.
- Write down what your dream day would include.
- Create a superhero called Dolphin Dude.
- If you didn’t need to breath when swimming underwater, what would you do? Write about your dream day. It might include rivers, lakes, swimming pools, the seas or oceans.
- If you had a super power, what would it be and why?
The Literacy Shed
Website The Literacy Shed has a page dedicated to interesting pictures for creative writing . There are winter scenes, abandoned places, landscapes, woodlands, pathways, statues and even flying houses.
The Literacy Shed also hosts video clips for inspiring writing and is choc-full of ways to use them. The Night Zookeeper Shed is well worth a visit. There are short videos, activities and resources to inspire creative writing.
Once Upon a Picture
Once Upon a Picture is another site packed with creative writing picture prompts , but its focus is more on illustrations than photography, so its offering is great for letting little imaginations soar.
Each one comes with questions for kids to consider, or activities to carry out.
How to improve creative writing
Developing story writing .
If you decided to climb a mountain, in order to be successful you’d need to be well-equipped and you’d need to have practised with smaller climbs first.
The same is true of creative writing: to be successful you need to be well-equipped with the skills of writing and have had plenty of opportunities to practise.
As a teachers you need to plan with this in mind – develop a writing journey which allows children to learn the art of story writing by studying stories of a similar style, focusing on how effects are created and scaffolding children’s writing activities so they achieve success.
- Choose a focus When planning, consider what skill you want to embed for children and have that as your focus throughout the sequence of learning. For example, if you teach Y4 you might decide to focus on integrating speech into stories. When your class looks at a similar story, draw their attention to how the author uses speech and discuss how it advances the action and shows you more about the characters. During the sequence, your class can practise the technical side of writing speech (new line/new speaker, end punctuation, etc). When they come to write their own story, your success criteria will be focused on using speech effectively. By doing this, the skill of using speech is embedded. If you chose to focus on ALL the elements of story writing that a Y4 child should be using (fronted adverbials, conjunctions, expanded noun phrases, etc), this might lead to cognitive overload.
- Plan in chances to be creative Often teachers plan three writing opportunities: one where children retell the story, one with a slight difference (eg a different main character) and a final one where children invent their own story. However, in my experience, the third piece of writing often never happens because children have lost interest or time has run out. If we equip children with the skills, we must allow them time to use them.
- Utilise paired writing Children love to collaborate and by working in pairs it actually helps develop independence. Give it a go!
- Find opportunities for real audiences Nothing is more motivating than knowing you will get to share your story with another class, a parent or the local nursing home.
- Use high-quality stimuli If your focus is speech, find a great novel for kids that uses speech effectively. There are so many excellent children’s stories available that there’s no need to write your own.
- Use magpie books This is somewhere where children can note down any great words or phrases they find from their reading. It will get them reading as a writer.
Below is a rough outline of a planning format that leads to successful writing opportunities.
This sequence of learning takes around three weeks but may be longer or shorter, depending on the writing type.
Before planning out the learning, decide on up to three key focuses for the sequence. Think about the potential learning opportunities that the stimuli supports (eg don’t focus on direct speech if you’re writing non-chronological reports).
Ways to overcome fear of creative writing
Many children are inhibited in their writing for a variety of reasons. These include the all-too-familiar ‘fear of the blank page’ (“I can’t think of anything to write about!” is a common lament), trying to get all the technical aspects right as they compose their work (a sense of being ‘overwhelmed’), and the fact that much of children’s success in school is underpinned by an ethos of competitiveness and comparison, which can lead to a fear of failure and a lack of desire to try.
Any steps we can take to diminish these anxieties means that children will feel increasingly motivated to write, and so enjoy their writing more. This in turn will lead to the development of skills in all areas of writing, with the broader benefits this brings more generally in children’s education.
Here are some easily applied and simple ideas from author and school workshop provider Steve Bowkett for boosting self-confidence in writing.
- Keep it creative Make creative writing a regular activity. High priority is given to spelling, punctuation and grammar, but these need a context to be properly understood. Teaching the technicalities of language without giving children meaningful opportunities to apply them is like telling people the names of a car engine’s parts without helping them learn to drive.
- Model the behaviour In other words, when you want your class to write a story or poem, have a go yourself and be upfront about the difficulties you encounter in trying to translate your thoughts into words.
- Go easy on the grammar Encourage children to write without them necessarily trying to remember and apply a raft of grammatical rules. An old saying has it that we should ‘learn the rules well and then forget them’. Learning how to use punctuation, for instance, is necessary and valuable, but when children try and apply the rules consciously and laboriously as they go along, the creative flow can be stifled. Consideration of rules should, however, be an important element of the editing process.
- Keep assessment focused Where you do require children to focus on rules during composition, pick just one or two they can bear in mind as they write. Explain that you will mark for these without necessarily correcting other areas of GaPS. Not only will this save you time, but also children will be spared the demotivating sight of their writing covered in corrections (which many are unlikely to read).
- Value effort If a child tries hard but produces work that is technically poor, celebrate his achievement in making an effort and apply the old ‘three stars and a wish’ technique to the work by finding three points you can praise followed by noting one area where improvements can be made.
- Leave room for improvement Make clear that it’s fine for children to change their minds, and that there is no expectation for them to ‘get it all right’ first time. Show the class before and after drafts from the work of well-known poets and extracts from stories. Where these have been hand written, they are often untidy and peppered with crossings out and other annotations as the writers tried to clarify their thoughts. If you have the facilities, invite children to word process their stories using the ‘track changes’ facility. Encourage children to show their workings out, as you would do in maths.
- Don’t strive for perfection Slay the ‘practice makes perfect’ dragon. It’s a glib phrase and also an inaccurate one. Telling children that practice makes better is a sound piece of advice. But how could we ever say that a story or poem is perfect? Even highly experienced authors strive to improve.
- Come back later Leave some time – a couple of days will do – between children writing a piece and editing or redrafting it. This is often known as the ‘cooling off’ period. Many children will find that they come back to their work with fresh eyes that enable them to pick out more errors, and with new ideas for improving the piece structurally.
- Try diamond 9 Use the diamond ranking tool to help children assess their own work. Give each child some scraps of paper or card and have them write on each an aspect of their writing, such as creating strong characters, controlling pace and tension, describing places and things, using ‘punchy’ verbs etc. Supply these elements as necessary, but allow children some leeway to think of examples of their own. Now ask each child to physically arrange these scraps according to how effectively they were used in the latest piece of work. So two writing elements that a child thinks are equally strong will be placed side by side, while an aspect of the work a child is pleased with will be placed above one that he / she is not so happy with.
- Keep it varied Vary the writing tasks. By this I mean it’s not necessary to ask children always to write a complete story. Get them to create just an opening scene for example, or a vivid character description, or an exciting story climax. If more-reluctant writers think they haven’t got to write much they might be more motivated to have a go. Varying the tasks also helps to keep the process of writing fresh, while the results can form resource banks (of characters, scenes, etc) for future use.
- Help each other Highlight the idea that everyone in the class, including yourself, forms a community of writers. Here, difficulties can be aired, advice can be shared and successes can be celebrated as we all strive to ‘dare to do it and do our best’.
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Blog | 7 Techniques for Generating Story Writing Ideas in KS2
7 Techniques for Generating Story Writing Ideas in KS2
Key stage 2 is a great time for children..
Typically, they will have settled into the flow of learning new subjects, and as KS2 teachers you get to help them flourish by practising, repeating and refining their learnt skills. When it comes to teaching literacy this also means encouraging your class’s creativity.
However, on occasion creativity can be hard to come by and story writing lessons might not produce the outcomes you were hoping for. To help you combat this, here are some techniques and ideas to help you inspire your class with creative writing tasks.
1. Create a Classroom Story Generator
A story generator is guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing! Here’s how to do it:
Create three lists:
1) Characters
3) Situations or tasks.
Write the ideas on paper and cut them out, then fold them up so you can’t see what’s written on them.
Find three bags (or any kind of container). Place all the folded character ideas in the first bag, the scenes in the second and the situations/tasks in the third. Ask each pupil to come up and draw a folded piece of paper from each bag. This will be the start of their story. Alternatively, you could build up five story-starting sentences from the bags and write them on the board. Your class could then choose which story they want to write.
Here are some examples to get you started:
You can tailor the ideas to suit your pupils’ abilities, age and preferences, which should really help to spark their imaginations.
2. Watch or Listen
It doesn’t have to be long or have any dialogue, but showing a short film to your class may help to trigger inspiration. Luckily there are literally millions of free videos available for this kind of thing. Vet them first to make sure they are completely suitable for your class, then turn down the lights and press play. You can show the video more than once, maybe asking the children to write notes on the second viewing which will help to inspire their stories.
Alternatively try playing a piece of instrumental music and ask your class to imagine what might be happening. Write their ideas and thoughts on the board and ask them to use this as the inspiration for a story.
3. Folklore and Fairy Tales
4. Storyboards
You’re not asking your class to be artists; they can use simple stick figures and words to get their ideas down on paper. But asking your class to draw out their ideas will help them generate some interesting story twists. By getting the structure of their stories down on paper in a sequence, they will know the beginning, middle and end of their stories so when they come to start writing it out there’s not an ounce of KS2 writers block in sight!
5. A Newspaper Clipping
Newspapers can be a huge source of inspiration. Interesting or unusual stories can be cut out and stuck into a scrap book to bring out and show your class in times of creative need! Alternatively, you could show your whole class a newspaper clipping and ask them all to write a story about the same extract.
6. Rewrite A Known Story
Rewriting a known story with a different ending or a different character is a great way to generate inspiration. This technique for generating story ideas can’t fail to produce results since the possibilities are endless!
For example:
- What if the story of Cinderella took place on Mars?
- What if Little Red Riding Hood lived in a jungle instead of a forest?
- What if the three little pigs were the three little wolves instead, and the big bad pig wanted to eat them for his dinner?
- What if Hansel and Gretel were actually the bad ones and wanted to eat the old lady?
- What if you asked your class to swap the characters in one story with the characters in another – Snow White and the Magic Beans, Jack and the Seven Dwarves.
Let your class’s imaginations run free and look forward to reading the end results!
7. Let the Children Choose
Set some homework for the children to go away and think of something they care about, something they are interested in, something which makes them happy, sad or angry and why that is. You could ask them to find a picture or a news story themselves which sparks their interest or emotion.
From the ideas generated at home, ask them to write a story in class. Passion is a wonderful muse after all, so if the children choose a topic that they really care about you should end up with some very good results!
Excited to teach imaginative writing in a new way? Mighty Writer can help!
Founder Emma Ralph discusses how mighty writer allows children to plan and write their own stories using just pictures. 30sec
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Fun Writing Activities for KS2
Looking for some ideas to engage children in writing? Check out some of our favourite, fun writing activities for KS2 children!
Classroom story maker
As a class, create three lists of ideas including characters, settings and problems/tasks. Write each idea on a piece of paper, then put the character ideas in one pot, settings in another and then problems/tasks in another. Children take it in turns to take an idea out of each pot to inspire their story writing. Alternatively, use these story cards for KS2!
Newspaper Headlines
Cut out interesting newspaper headlines or write your own and place them in a bowl. Children pick out a headline and write an article that fits the headline.
Object Conversations
Ask children to imagine a conversation between two inanimate objects. What would they say to each other? Why? Would they like each other? Why or why not? e.g. a conversation between a window pane and a curtain, a conversation between a fork and a spoon, a conversation between a sock and a shoe.
Ask children to write a letter to their future selves . What are their hopes and aims for this year? What would they like to achieve? What job might they want in the future. Keep the letters until the end of the school year and let children open them. Did they achieve their goals? Did anything change?
Dictionary flick
Ask children to flick through the dictionary and let their fingers fall randomly on three words. Can you make a sentence or a story that includes each of the words?
Time travellers
Ask children to imagine that they have travelled back in time. Write a postcard or a letter to a friend explaining what it's like, who they've met, what they've seen, etc.
Explain a story in 10 words
Challenge children to condense the plot of a story into just ten words.
Write a collaborative story
Put children into pairs or small groups. Challenge them to write a story together by taking it in turns to write a sentence each.
Looking for some more fun writing activities for KS2? Check out our FREE KS2 Writing activity bundle!
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- Creative Writing Ideas
- Writing Fiction
1) Writing Traditional Stories from a Different Point of View
Read "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" (by Jon Scieszka) with the children. This tells the "Three Little Pigs" story from the wolf's point of view.
Ask the children to think of a story that they know well, and to write another version from another point of view.
e.g. Write "Cinderella" from the point of view of one of the ugly sisters,
OR Write "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" from the point of view of the troll,
OR Write "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" from the point of view of Goldilocks.
2) Design a New Room for the Chocolate Factory
Based on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl.
Remind the children of the story and read chapter 15 - a description of the Chocolate Room.
Ask the children who have read the story if they can think of any of the other rooms in the factory. Make a list of these on the board for the children to refer to later.
Now ask the children to make up a new room for the chocolate factory, making sure that they are as descriptive as possible.
Jessica Miller has also suggested the following idea:
What might have happened if any of the other children had gotten the factory?
3) Missing Person
The following activity is great fun, and usually produces great results, but must be used with caution. Only try it with a class you are comfortable with, and who you think will cope with the situation. Also try to add a little humour where possible, ensuring that the children are aware that it's not real - you're just pretending!
Choose a name for a missing person (e.g. "Paul"), making sure that this is not the name of someone in the class. Before the lesson, put a chair in an empty space in the classroom. For the purposes of the lesson, pretend that this space is where "Paul" normally sits.
Ask the children where "Paul" is. They will probably look at you as though you are mad, but continually ask them where "Paul" is today. Tell them that he normally sits in his space (point to the empty chair) and that he was there yesterday, but he isn't there today. Insist that they tell you where he is. Hopefully someone will make up a reason why "Paul" isn't in today. Argue with them, saying that you have heard differently. Ask if anyone knows anything else. Ask who was the last person to see him. Continue like this for a while, with the children explaining where he is.
Finally, say that as Paul is missing, we will have to make some missing person posters, explaining who Paul is (with a picture so others can identify him!), where he was last seen and who to contact if he is found. When these are made, you could post them around the school.
A missing person poster template can be found below.
4) Supermoo's New Adventures
Based on the book "Supermoo" by Babette Cole.
Read the story through with the children. Discuss the main characters (Supermoo, Calf Crypton, the BOTS, Miss Pimple's class), and ask the children to produce a new adventure for a series of new Supermoo books. This could be in the form of a story, or a storyboard with accompanying pictures.
When finished, the children could actually make the books for younger children in the school to read.
5) Recipes for Dreams
Based on "The BFG" by Roald Dahl.
Remind the children of the story and read the "Dreams" chapter to give the children some ideas. Ask them to make a recipe for a dream. They could set it out like a cooking recipe with ingredients and mixing instructions and there should also be a short description of the dream (which could be a "Golden Phizzwizard" or a "Trogglehumper").
When all of the recipes are finished, they could be made into a "Dream Recipe Cook Book".
6) Dr. Xargle's Book of .....
This activity is based on the Dr. Xargle series of books written by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Tony Ross.
Read through some of the books in the series.
The children should write their own Dr. Xargle story in which he teaches his class about a different aspect of Earth life (e.g. school, work). This will encourage them to look at everyday life from a different point of view. If there is enough time, they could also make illustrations to accompany their text.
7) Class Mascot Activity
Find a small soft toy or puppet which will become the class mascot. With the class, choose a name for the mascot, and discuss its background (where it comes from, its friends and family, its likes and dislikes etc.).
Let each child take the mascot (and a book in which to write) home for a few days at a time. While they are looking after the mascot, they should write a short story in the book outlining what the mascot has done during its stay with them. This can be true or the children can make up events (e.g. a trip to the moon). Encourage them to be as creative as possible.
When the mascot returns to school, spend some time discussing what it has done and where it has been. The class could make a book describing the mascot's travels.
8) When I am famous...
"In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" - Andy Warhol
Discuss the above quote with the children, and talk about what it means to be famous. Would they like to be famous? What would they like to be famous for?
The children could then write:
An account of what they would like to be famous for, and why.
A diary, written as if the child was famous in the future. How are they feeling? What things do they have to do?
A newspaper interview, written as if in the future, with the child who is now famous.
9) How did the elephant get its trunk?
Can the children think of a story which describes how the elephant got its trunk? Or how about explaining how a giraffe got its long neck? How did the leopard get its spots? Why has a rabbit got long ears? Why is a zebra stripy?
10) Description of a New Animal
A good way of asking children to use their descriptive writing skills is to ask them to invent a new animal. Ask them to describe what it looks like, where it lives, what it does, what it eats etc. It might be useful to discuss existing animals and their characteristics beforehand.
11) Writing a story based on adverts
In the back of many books, there are often adverts for other stories. Why not get the children to choose one of these adverts, and write a story based on the description of the story in the advert. They don't need to have read the book which is being advertised, and you can get them to compare their own story to the real version when they have finished.
12) Using Objects
Take 4 or 5 unrelated but interesting objects and challenge children to create either a skit or a character description of the owner. Great for oral discussion but also useful for character analysis. Suggested by Jane Knight.
13) Name Characters
This is using art and creative writing, and was suggested by Jeanette Carpenter:
- Fold a piece of paper in half and on the fold line write your name.
- Cut around the outside shape of your name.
- Open your name and you will have a shape based on your letters.
- Colour and design your shape into a character.
- Glue your finished character to a piece of construction paper.
- Write a descriptive paragraph about your character as if it is an alien arriving here on earth for the first time. Give it a name, place of origin, reason for being here, etc.
Missing Person Template
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28th November 2015
That was amazing for me to get some creative ideas thank you
1st March 2016
Thanks for sharing these great ideas. I'm going to use the missing person for my class tomorrow
10th March 2016
I set up a desk, name tag, supplies, other artifacts, and then asked about the missing student. It has kicked off the best creative writing I've seen in my fifth grade classroom. Love it!
27th April 2016
It was literally helpful, thank you!
25th July 2016
This has really helped a lot thank th so much!!!!
5th November 2016
Brilliant ideas!!! I am teaching creative writing at a summer camp next year and this would be brilliant!!!
9th January 2017
this is fantastic i will try them with my class tomorrow!
farah Ameer
28th September 2017
I did missing person activity in m class. Students really enjoyed and had fun
Anisha Thirumala
25th November 2017
Thank you so much, now I will get a really good grade in English!
30th May 2018
Thank you! These are lovely :)
27th November 2018
Wow! I really love this. It is gonna be absolutely fun for my class especially that of the missing person. Cheers!
15th August 2019
I love those ideas they are great thanks
19th October 2019
These are fantastic! My daughter really enjoyed using these!
11th November 2020
Great ideas thank you
Shabana Ali
13th February 2022
Wonderful ideas.These are going to be great teaching tools.
You may also like:
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7 fun writing activities for the reluctant writer
7 FUN WRITING ACTIVITIES FOR THE RELUCTANT WRITER
No doubt about it – writing isn’t easy. It is no wonder that many of our students could be described as ‘reluctant writers’ at best. It has been estimated by the National Association of Educational Progress that only about 27% of 8th and 12th Grade students can write proficiently.
As educators, we know that regular practice would go a long way to helping our students correct this underachievement, and sometimes, writing prompts just aren’t enough to light the fire.
But how do we get students, who have long since been turned off writing, to put pen to paper and log in the requisite time to develop their writing chops?
The answer is to make writing fun! In this article, we will look at some creative writing activities where we can inject a little enjoyment into the writing game.
1. Poetry Scavenger Hunt
The Purpose: This activity encourages students to see the poetry in the everyday language around them while helpfully reinforcing their understanding of some of the conventions of the genre.
The Process: Encourage students to ‘scavenge’ their school, home, and outside the community for snippets of language they can compile into a piece of poetry or a poetic collage. They may copy down or photograph words, phrases, and sentences from signs, magazines, leaflets or even snippets of conversations they overhear while out and about.
Examples of language they collect may range from the Keep Out sign on private property to the destination on the front of a local bus.
Once students have gathered their language together, they can work to build a poem out of the scraps, usually choosing a central theme to give the piece cohesion. They can even include corresponding artwork to enhance the visual appeal of their work, too, if they wish.
The Prize: If poetry serves one purpose, it is to encourage us to look at the world anew with the fresh eyes of a young child. This activity challenges our students to read new meanings into familiar things and to put their own spin on the language they encounter in the world around them, all while reinforcing the student’s grasp on poetic conventions.
2. Story Chains
The Purpose: Writing is often thought of as a solitary pursuit, and for this reason alone, it can be seen as a particularly unattractive activity by many of our more gregarious students. This fun activity exercises students’ understanding of writing structures and engages them in some fun, creative collaboration.
The Process: Each student starts with a blank piece of paper and pen. The teacher writes a story prompt on the whiteboard. You’ll find some excellent narrative writing prompts here . For example, each student spends two minutes using the writing prompt to kick start their writing.
When they have completed this part of the task, they will then pass their piece of paper to the student next to them. Students then continue the story from where the previous student left off for a given number of words, paragraphs, or length of time.
If organized correctly, you can ensure students receive their own initial story back at the end for the writing of the story’s conclusion .
The Prize: This fun writing activity can be used effectively to reinforce student understanding of narrative writing structures, but it can also be fun to try with other writing genres too.
Working collaboratively can really motivate students to engage with the task as no one wants to be the ‘weak link’ in the finished piece. But, more than that, this activity encourages students to see writing as a communicative and creative task where there needn’t be a ‘right’ answer. This encourages students to be more willing to take on creative risks in their work.
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3. Acrostic Associations
The Purpose: This is another great way to get students to try writing poetry – a genre that many students find the most daunting.
The Process: Acrostics are simple poems whereby each letter of a word or phrase begins a new line in the poem. Younger students can start off with something very simple, like their own name or their favorite pet and write this vertically down the page.
Older students can take a word or phrase related to a topic they have been working on or that they have a particular interest in and write this down on the page before beginning to write.
The Prize: This activity has much in common with the old psychiatrist’s word association technique. Students should be encouraged to riff on ideas and themes generated by the focus word or phrase. They needn’t worry about rhyme and meter and such here, but the preset letter for each line will give them some structure to their meanderings and require them to impose some discipline on their wordsmithery, albeit in a fun and loose manner.
4. The What If Challenge
The Purpose: This challenge helps encourage students to see the link between posing interesting hypothetical questions and creating an entertaining piece of writing.
The Process: To begin this exercise, have the students come up with a single What If question, which they can then write down on a piece of paper. The more off-the-wall, the better!
For example, ‘What if everyone in the world knew what you were thinking?’ or ‘What if your pet dog could talk?’ Students fold up their questions and drop them into a hat. Each student picks one out of the hat before writing on that question for a suitable set amount of time.
The Prize: Students are most likely to face the terror of the dreaded Writer’s Block when they are faced with open-ended creative writing tasks.
This activity encourages the students to see the usefulness of posing hypothetical What If questions, even random off-the-wall ones, for kick-starting their writing motors.
Though students begin by answering the questions set for them by others, encourage them to see how they can set these questions for themselves the next time they suffer from a stalled writing engine.
5. The Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World
The Purpose: Up until now, we have looked at activities encouraging our students to have fun with genres such as fiction and poetry. These genres being imaginative in nature, more easily lend themselves to being enjoyable than some of the nonfiction genres.
But what about descriptive writing activities? In this activity, we endeavor to bring that same level of enjoyment to instruction writing while also cleverly reinforcing the criteria of this genre.
The Process: Undoubtedly, when teaching instruction writing, you will at some point cover the specific criteria of the genre with your students.
These will include things like the use of a title, numbered or bulleted points, time connectives, imperatives, diagrams with captions etc. You will then want the students to produce their own piece of instruction writing or procedural text to display their understanding of how the genre works.
But, why not try a fun topic such as How to Make the Most Disgusting Sandwich in the World rather than more obvious (and drier!) topics such as How to Tie Your Shoelaces or How to Make a Paper Airplane when choosing a topic for your students to practice their instruction writing chops?
The Prize: As mentioned, with nonfiction genres, in particular, we tend to suggest more banal topics for our students to work on while internalizing the genre’s criteria. Enjoyment and acquiring practical writing skills need not be mutually exclusive.
Our students can just as quickly, if not more easily, absorb and internalize the necessary writing conventions while engaged in writing about whimsical and even nonsensical topics.
if your sandwich is entering the realm of horror, be sure to check our complete guide to writing a scary story here as well.
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6. Diary Entry of a Future Self
The Purpose: This activity allows students to practice personal writing within the conventions of diary/journal writing. It also challenges them to consider what their world will be like in the future, perhaps stepping a foot into the realm of science fiction.
The Process: Straightforwardly, after working through some examples of diary or journal writing, and reviewing the various criteria of the genre, challenge the students to write an entry at a given milestone in the future.
This may be when they leave school, begin work, go to university, get married, have kids, retire etc. You may even wish to get the students to write an entry for a series of future milestones as part of a more extended project.
The Prize: Students will get a chance here to exercise their understanding of this type of writing , but, more than that, they will also get an opportunity to exercise their imaginative muscles too. They will get to consider what shape their future world will take in this engaging thought experiment that will afford opportunities for them to improve their writing too.
7. Comic Strip Script
The Purpose: Give your students the chance to improve their dialogue writing skills and to work on their understanding of character development in this fun activity which combines writing with the use of a series of visual elements.
The Process: There are two ways to do this activity. The first requires you to source, or create, a comic strip minus the dialogue the characters are speaking. This may be as straightforward as using whiteout to erase the words in speech bubbles and making copies for your students to complete.
Alternatively, provide the students with photographs/pictures and strips of cards for them to form their own action sequences . When students have their ‘mute’ strips, they can begin to write the dialogue/script to link the panels together.
The Prize: When it comes to writing, comic strips are probably one of the easier sells to reluctant students! This activity also allows students to write for speech. This will stand to them later when they come to produce sections of dialogue in their narrative writing or when producing play or film scripts.
They will also develop their visual literacy skills as they scan the pictures for clues of tone and context before they begin their writing.
Keep It Fun
Just as we should encourage our students to read for fun and wider educational benefits, we should also work to instil similar attitudes towards writing. To do this means we must work to avoid always framing writing in the context of a chore, that bitter pill that must be swallowed for the good of our health.
There is no getting away from the fact that writing can, at times, be laborious. It is time-consuming and, for most of us, difficult at the best of times. There is a certain, inescapable amount of work involved in becoming a competent writer.
That said, as we have seen in the activities above, with a bit of creative thought, we can inject fun into even the most practical of writing activities . All that is required is a dash of imagination and a sprinkling of effort.
MORE FUN WRITING ACTIVITIES FOR YOU
7 Fun Writing Sub Plans for Substitute Teachers
25 Fun Christmas Writing Tasks for Students
5 Fun Seasonal Writing Activities Students and Teachers Love
10 Fun Classroom Writing Games to Improve Literacy Skills
The Writing Process
7 Evergreen Writing Activities for Elementary Students
9 Fun First Day at School Writing Activities
Short Story Writing for Students and Teachers
The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane’s latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing , can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.
AN ENTIRE YEAR of engaging writing tasks awaits you.
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Creative Writing Tasks for KS2 Students
Subject: Creative writing
Age range: 7-11
Resource type: Worksheet/Activity
I am a teacher, blogger, and teacher trainer with more than 30 years of experience in education. I like to explore new possibilities to engage learners and enhance their learning experiences. I am the author of the blog, Learning and Leading in the 21st Century http://aysinalp.edublogs.org / where I share my reflections and insights on learning and technology.
Last updated
7 March 2016
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Thanks for these. There are lots of interesting ideas and I am sure I will be making use of this resource.
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Fantastic resource. Thank you so much.
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How do I use writing topics in my classroom?
Do you want to inspire your students to write great narratives, essays, and reports? Check out these grade-specific writing topics organized by mode (explanatory, creative, and so on). Or search for writing topics that relate to a theme, such as “life” or “animals” or “family.”
Jump to . . .
Explanatory writing.
- A day in the rainforest
- After-school games
- An important person I know about
- At the library
- Foods I don't like
- Friendly places
- Games I play with friends
- Games we play at recess
- Good things in my neighborhood
- How plants grow
- How to make my favorite dessert
- How to make new friends
- I like spring because . . .
- I like to make . . .
- I'd like to see . . .
- Insects, insects everywhere
- Learning to ride a bike
- My favorite food
- My favorite pet
- My favorite season
- My mom's/dad's hobby
- My new friend
- My shopping list
- Our clubhouse
- The biggest bubble-gum bubble
- The funniest zoo animal
- This person makes me laugh
- What I know about . . .
- What I know about an animal
- What I know about dinosaurs
- What I know about stars
- What I know about the ocean
- What I like about math
- What makes me laugh?
- What will I share?
- Who I will be in the future
- Who's at the zoo?
- Why I like to read
- Why I love to sing
- Words I think are funny
Persuasive Writing
- Don't litter!
- Things that would make my neighborhood better
Narrative Writing
- A day at the beach
- A special birthday
- Buying something with my own money
- Cooking dinner with Mom/Dad
- Eating lunch with my friends
- Going grocery shopping
- Going to the circus
- I rode on a . . .
- I'm happy when . . .
- Losing my teeth
- My adventure
- My trip to . . .
- Noisy times and quiet times
- Playing a game with Grandma/Grandpa
- Playing with pets
- Something funny that happened to me
- The biggest thing I ever saw
- The last time I cried
- When _ was born
Response to Literature
- A book I just read
- Some of my favorite books
Creative Writing
- A story about a holiday
- A trip on a rocket ship
- Dear George Washington
- Seeing the world through the eyes of . . .
- Sometimes I wish . . .
- What if I met a . . .
- What if I were 10 years old?
- What if I were someone else?
- What if toys could talk?
- What's under my bed?
Research Writing
- I wonder why . . .
- Something I don't understand
- A bicycle I'd like to have
- A day in the desert
- A great place to go
- A great treehouse
- A place I like to visit
- A sport I'm good at
- A trip on a monorail
- Activities for indoor fun
- Activities for outdoor fun
- Amazing facts I know
- An amazing animal
- Dancing to the music
- Having fun at school
- Helping out around the house
- Magic tricks I can do
- Making my favorite food
- My favorite baby-sitter
- My favorite board game
- My favorite teacher
- My homework place
- Our classroom pet
- Some things I like about the museum
- The best house pets
- The weirdest house pets
- Things that are hard to believe
- Things to do in the snow
- Unusual fruits and vegetables
- Water balloons!
- What I like about where I live
- What makes me special
- Who is beautiful?
- Let's help the environment by . . .
- Things I'd like to change
- A cozy spot at home
- A funny time in my family
- A great day with a friend
- A helpful person I have met
- A person who means the world to me
- A walk in the woods
- Funny things my pet has done
- My best birthday
- My favorite family story
- Putting on a play
- Swimming at the pool or lake
- When everything goes wrong
- Book characters I'd like to meet
- A dark hallway
- Donuts for dinner
- Something I wish would happen
- What if there were no electricity
- All about an amazing animal
Business Writing
- A cartoon character that I like
- A song that means a lot to me
- A special photograph
- A special, secret place
- A trip in a submarine
- An important time in history
- Building a fort
- Creatures that live in the ocean
- Creepy, crawly things
- Dirt bikes and skateboards
- Do I want to be famous?
- Doing homework
- Going to the dentist
- Gone fishing!
- How to stop hiccups
- How we divide the chores at our house
- I don't understand why . . .
- I'd like to invent a machine that . . .
- If I started my own business, I'd . . .
- Instructions for a pet sitter of my pet
- Let's help the animals by . . .
- Looking at the globe
- My favorite clothes
- My favorite form of exercise
- Pizza is . . .
- Staying at a friend's house
- The first day of school is the worst/best because . . .
- The rules we follow
- Things I see when I take a walk
- What I use a computer for
- What if I were the teacher?
- What is important to me?
- What it's like to use a wheelchair
- What my dreams feel like
- When I see nature, I . . .
- Why I like/dislike playing team sports
- Why my mom and dad are the greatest
- My school really needs . . .
- A day in the life of my pet
- A visit to a friend's school
- An excellent birthday party
- Discovering a new friend
- Getting my first pair of glasses
- Grandma's attic
- I'll never eat another . . .
- My best day
- My first school memories
- My most embarrassing moment
- Rings on her fingers
- Talk about being scared!
- When I did something amazing
- When I was upside down
- When the big storm hit
- If I wrote like the author of . . .
- A really spooky story
- Summer games
- What if we suddenly had to move?
- A game that meant a lot to my childhood
- A school field trip
- A toy I've held onto all these years
- A trip to a space station
- A typical lunch hour
- Can farmers grow enough food for everyone?
- Here's what a new student needs to know
- How I can change the way I look
- How I picture myself four years from now
- How I would define the word . . .
- I would have liked to have lived during this time.
- I'm principal for the day. Here is my schedule.
- I've done something that no one else has done
- If I could be someone else, I would be . . .
- My bedroom from top to bottom
- My favorite place
- My idea of a fun weekend
- My life as a . . .
- My participation in an activity outside of school
- One thing I want to do by the time I leave 8th grade
- Overcoming health problems
- The wildest hairstyle I have ever seen
- What a family member taught me
- What a house of the future might look like
- What I broke or lost that belongs to someone else
- A big hazard on the road
- A big problem in education is . . .
- A cool store
- A dedicated teacher or coach
- Dear Senator
- Discover nature
- Finally, a good assembly
- How could TV be better?
- Let's save _ in our schools
- My best class ever
- My favorite neighbor
- My favorite singer(s)
- Rights that kids in my grade should have
- The worst food I ever ate
- This really bugs me
- What's good about hard work?
- Why I deserve a larger allowance
- Why parents should be honest with their kids
- Why school fund-raisers are important
- Why weekends need to be longer
- A memorable bus ride
- A narrow escape from trouble
- A time that was just not fair
- A visit to a relative's house
- If I lived back in history
- If only I would have listened!
- My first concert
- My first friend
- Summer in a cabin by a lake
- The most fun I've had recently
- We couldn't stop laughing!
- We got caught!
- When I was lost
- A great book made into a great movie
- My favorite character from a book
- What if a book came to life?
- What this story means to me
- How _ came to be.
- Life among the cloud people
- Long ago and far away
- Meeting myself in the future
- Traveling west in a wagon train
- When the dinosaurs returned
- A job I'd really like to have
- All about an amazing place
- The most fascinating things I learned
- The tallest, the deepest, the longest, the biggest
- When I conducted an experiment
- When science took a big leap forward
Personal Writing
- The book that got me hooked on reading
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- My muscles were so sore after . . .
- My Web site
- Self-esteem
- Something this school really needs is . . .
- Sometimes, adults seem . . .
- The environment: problem and solution
- The hardest thing I have ever done
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- We all make mistakes
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- What invention would I like to see in my lifetime?
- What it's like where I work
- Who knows me best?
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- "Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal."
- A change that would improve school life
- Foods I love, foods I hate
- I couldn't believe that Mom/Dad volunteered me for that job
- It's a rule, so it's right . . . right?
- Let's hear it for my favorite senior citizen
- Let's push alternate forms of energy
- Putting my foot in my mouth
- The government should . . .
- What most drives me crazy is . . .
- Why appearance is not so important
- Why I deserve the job
- _ is like a boomerang
- A funny thing happened when . . .
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- My brother or sister made me so mad
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- When I traveled to . . .
- A remarkable artist
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- Alone on a desert island
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Creative writing prompts for kids
What happens when you ask your child to write a story? It’s a common homework task for primary school kids, and a key part of the English National Curriculum , but while some children are overflowing with inspiration, others find it hard to come up with ideas. That’s where creative writing prompts – any tool that is used to kickstart the writing process, such as a picture, an opening sentence or a piece of music – can come in useful.
Download a FREE Creative Writing toolkit!
- KS1 & KS2 workbooks
- Bursting with fill-in prompt sheets and inspiring ideas
- Story structure tips, style guides and editing suggestions
‘Creative writing prompts can be anything that gets children thinking outside the box,’ explains Julia Skinner, founder of the 100 Word Challenge writing programme and The Head’s Office blog. ‘Some children find it hard to get going with creative writing, and really benefit from having a more thought-provoking starting point.’
Creative writing prompts: the benefits
Often, children are given a creative writing task based on a set title, such as: ‘Write a story about a dragon’. ‘This might not be a problem for a child who has lots of imagination, but it can be a challenge for those who find it difficult to come up with ideas and don’t consider themselves to be very creative,’ says Julia.
A creative writing prompt such as a picture or opening sentence can help to fire this creative process. ‘It gives children both the freedom and encouragement to develop their ideas by thinking beyond the obvious and immediate,’ Julia explains. ‘Giving them something specific and concrete can help them to develop their ideas in ways that they would usually struggle with.’
Prompts can help children to come up with a far more diverse set of ideas than they might usually. ‘If you give a whole class a set title, you tend to get a very generic response,’ says Julia. ‘But if they have a prompt, they can use it to take their story in any direction they choose.’
Using prompts also encourages children to use all their senses to inspire their writing. Giving them a title alone is likely to inspire a one-dimensional response, whereas showing them a picture can help them to imagine themselves in the scene and use all five senses to explore what their characters might see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
How to use a creative writing prompt
The key to using a creative writing prompt, says Julia, is to not just put it in front of your child but to spend some time exploring it together before they put pen to paper . ‘Creative writing shouldn’t be something where you leave your child to their own devices,’ Julia explains. ‘It really needs some input to draw out your child’s ideas. Set aside 20 minutes to discuss the story, starting with the prompt and asking questions to build on what your child suggests.’
It’s important to make sure your child knows that there are no boundaries where creative writing is concerned. ‘The testing culture in schools has led children to think that there is always one answer to aim for, but in creative writing, there is no right or wrong,’ says Julia. ‘We need to build children’s confidence to write about whatever they’re seeing or thinking, and prompts are a great way to encourage this.’
It’s also essential to let your child write freely when they’re using a writing prompt, without getting too caught up in spelling, punctuation and grammar. ‘Children need to be able to write creatively and without restriction,’ Julia agrees. ‘They need to feel free to express themselves, knowing that they can come back and put in the capital letters and full stops later.’
Six of the best creative writing prompts
Pictures Pictures are probably the most obvious creative writing prompt. You can use any sort of picture – a cartoon, a photo, a piece of classic artwork – to inspire children’s imagination. ‘One of my favourite picture prompts is a photo of a smashed chocolate egg, surrounded by tiny model workmen,’ Julia says. You can either leave the picture blank, or add a caption to encourage children along the right lines: for example, a speech bubble on a person saying, ‘Where am I going?’
We love Coram Beanstalk's Make Your Own Story Dice (illustrated by Nick Sharratt) – you can download the templates for free, then colour in, stick together and use for endless storytelling!
Sentences Another good prompt is to give children a sentence – typically the opening sentence of a story – to build their writing on. Giving them a starter such as, ‘How was the dragon going to tell his father what he had done?’ can prompt a huge and varied range of storylines, from adventure to comedy to tragedy.
A page from a book A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, so taking a page from a children’s picture book and removing the text is a great way to kickstart a piece of creative writing.
Music Using music as a prompt can help your child to think about how they use their senses in their writing. Typically, instrumental pieces work best, otherwise the lyrics put words in your child’s mouth, but you can use any genre, from classical to rap. Encourage them to think about how the music makes them feel; what they think is happening; what sort of character would play that music, and so on .
A feely bag Put a selection of small, tactile objects into a bag (for instance, a golf ball, a fork, a comb…) and ask your child to pick one out at random. Use this as the starting point for their piece of writing, building a plot around it.
Challenges For children who are motivated by rewards, taking part in a writing challenge can help to prompt them to write. The 100 Word Challenge, run in association with Night Zookeeper , gives children a weekly writing prompt; they then put together a piece in 100 words and can upload it to the website where other children can read and comment on their, giving them extra motivation to write.
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Home > Book Lists > KS2: Creative Writing Ideas
Creative Writing Ideas
Check out these awesome journals and activity books which are bursting with tips and ideas to fire-up imaginations and inspire future authors.
The Get Creative Journal by Jacqueline Wilson, Nick Sharratt (Illustrator)
Taking inspiration from Jacqueline Wilson's brilliant characters, fire your imagination and get your creative juices flowing with this boredom-busting activity journal, beautifully illustrated by Nick Sharratt and complete with space to record your ideas every day.
Roald Dahl’s Creative Writing With Matilda: How to Write Spellbinding Speech
Go on a creative adventure with Matilda and learn how to write MARVELLOUS conversations and MAGNIFICENT reported speech.
Roald Dahl's Creative Writing will spark your creativity, build your confidence and inspire you through the wonderful worlds of Roald Dahl's best loved stories!
Filled with top tips and ideas boxes, each book introduces techniques and methods to help you plan and write a phizz-whizzing story of your own!
Wonder Journal by R.J. Palacio
A beautiful journal for use throughout the year, packed with quotes, inspiration and words of wisdom from the much-loved, bestelling and award-winning novel WONDER.
Dr. Who: Choose Your Future Journal
Join the Doctor on a year-long adventure surrounded by brilliant women who have changed the world. From science to sport, politics and art, be inspired by their own amazing past achievements and plan for your future.
On every page of this journal there are facts, dates and anniversaries of pioneering women from history and the present day, as well as prompts and activities to unlock your creativity and potential.
As the Doctor would say: "Oh, brilliant!"
You Choose Your Dreams by Pippa Goodhart, Nick Sharratt (Illustrator)
What would it be like to be as little as a mouse; or as big as a house?
Imagine exploring the depths of the ocean, travelling into the past or the future - YOU CHOOSE YOUR DREAMS and your own wild and wonderful adventure!
This highly inventive and interactive book allows children to tell their own stories, combining new elements each time.
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