Here at FLOW we are busy finishing up our last session of after-school workshops and getting ready for our summer camps that will meet on Zoom. You can see the full schedule at: flowwritersworkshop.com
Spring is a wonderful time of year for writing as there is so much to observe growing and changing around us each day. Here are a few more writing activities to carry you through the beginning of May.
End of the School Year Time Capsule
Before you begin, decide how many questions your kiddos want to answer and how long they want to wait until they open the capsule. It can be fun to have the opening time coincide with a time they will go through big changes such as the end of elementary school, or the beginning/ending of middle school, high school, or college. Make sure your kiddos include their names and the date on the document that goes inside the capsule! You can either print up a list of questions for your younger kiddos to answer, create a list with your kiddos and have them answer the questions, or ask your kiddos to create and answer their own questions.
Here are some questions to get you started: Who are your best friends? What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite thing to eat? What is your least favorite food? What is something at which you excel? What was your favorite book you read this school year? What is your favorite song? What is your best memory from this school year? What do you want to learn next year? Place your list of answered questions in a box or plastic container and hide it somewhere until you are ready to open it on the agreed upon date.
Writing a Nonet Poem
As we begin the count down for the final days of the school year it might be fun to write this 9-line poem in which the syllable count goes down with every line. There are no rules that guide the poem except for the diminishing number of syllables. The first line has 9 syllables, then there are 8 syllables in the second line, 7 syllables in the third line, and so forth until you have one syllable in the ninth and final line of the poem.
Teacher Appreciation
Ask your kiddos to write a letter to their teachers thanking them for their hard work this school year. Your kiddos can do this on paper or create something digitally and set it up as a slide show or other multimedia presentation with photos.
Another fun idea is to rewrite the words to a song and make it about their teachers-think Weird Al for inspiration. My kiddos have been working on a rendition of Pink Floyd that begins, “Thank you for my education…”.
For poets, you might ask kiddos to write a poem in which each stanza begins with the line “I learned from my teacher how.”