| Copyright 2006 Julie Shepherd Knapp |
| Copyright 2006 Julie Shepherd Knapp. All rights reserved. |
| about the book |
| The Homeschool Diner's Guide to Homeschooling by Subject Language Arts for Homeschoolers Narrative Activities to Jump-start Your Child's Storytelling and Writing Skills (Beginning Level) by Julie Shepherd knapp, copyright 2006 These activities and games are designed for reluctant writers and kids who hate to write. They provide exercise for narrative skills and present several ways to ease into low-key writing activities. The advanced activities are on another page (see the link at the bottom). Let me know if you and your children come up with any other fun narration games -- I'd love to add them to the list :-) Beginning Narrative Games and Activities Who am I? What are they saying? Picture This Make a Better Story Picture Book Improv DIY Storytelling What If...? Descriptions of the Games and Activities Who am I? A classic guessing game – choose a character, then the other players must ask "yes" or "no" questions to figure out who you are. Help your child think of good questions to ask, such as “Are you a cartoon character/real person/character from a book?”… “Are you a child/adult/man/woman?”… “Are you an animal/dinosaur/robot?”… “Are you an artist/scientist/author/sports figure?” "Are you from the present/past/future?"... Are you a hero or a villain? etc.. “What are they saying?” Look at photos or pictures in books and magazines, and think of what the people (or animals) might be saying. Humorous dialog is the most fun. If you can copy the picture, then write your captions, with quotation marks, and glue them to the picture. Hang them on the fridge! If you find, in doing this activity, that your child has a hard time reading body language and facial expressions, your child may also benefit from some of the resources on the Diner Help with Social Skills page. [You might also want to take a look at information on Aspergers and NVLD in the Special Needs section, to see if maybe your child has a few of the issues related to these disorders.] Picture This Choose a picture book where the pictures are elaborate. Comparing the story text and the pictures... think of what else (additional details) the author could have written for each page. Examples might be adding a description of the main character's hair color, noting the weather, describing the look on the characters' faces -- essentially you will be making the story longer, richer in detail, maybe more interesting :-) Spectrum Writing Series Use a simple writing curriculum (I recommend this Spectrum Series because the exercises are not busywork -- they are very good practice in learning to use words to express ideas -- check out the sample pages) but DO NOT have your child write the answers. Instead, talk about the answers, and, if you want to, write down a few of your child's responses. The intent is to get used to talking about what could be written :-) Make a Better Story Choose a picture book or short chapter book that your child has read. Talk about what you and your child liked and didn’t like about the book. How might you change it to make it better? Use the opportunity to talk about the “characters” and the “plot” of the story. How would the story change if the main character was someone else? Is there a moral or lesson to be learned from the story? Would the character reach the same conclusions if the plot were changed? What might be learned instead? Point out to your child that improving upon an existing story can lead to writing a new story that is very different from the original. This is how many authors get ideas for their stories. Even if an author writes a story “from scratch” the editing process is the same – trying to make it better or more interesting than the original version. If your child is interested, help them write (or dictate to you), their own version of the story. Picture Book Improv Choose a picture book that your child hasn’t read. Cover up the text, and, between the two of you, think up a story to go with the pictures. Some children are not inclined to making up fictional stories -- they might be more interested in using the pictures to teach or tell about a topic. If this is the case, chose factual books with photos or illustrations about animals, nature, science, motorcycles - whatever might interest your child. Do-It-Yourself Storytelling Gather a collection of interesting magazine photos or print out a variety of photos from the Internet (at least 20), focusing on lmages that might generate story ideas. Take turns drawing a photo from a hat and incorporating the photo into a short story that you make up as you go along. Start out with a standard beginning, such as "Once upon a time", or, "Once there was a child", or "Just the other day"... and go from there. Humor may help make a really lame story plot fun and interesting ;-) but remember that some children just are not cut out for creative writing. You may need to gather nature or science related photos and create a report, instead of story -- full of real details and facts. If you need more facts, involve your child in your research. What If...? Think of funny situations and talk about the repercussions and what would happen, such as "What if streets were rivers?", "What if candy grew on bushes?, "What if chairs could talk?" "What if snakes liked ice cream? Write down any really funny ideas and make a poster with them. When these activities are too easy try these: Advanced Narrative Games and Activities Or go back to the beginning level: Help for Kids Who Hate to Write: Word Retrieval and Narrative Activities |
| (back to) writing resources |
| (back to) visual-spatial learners |
| (back to) special needs |
| Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. -Roger Miller, musician (1936-1992) |