Creative Writing Prompts For Every Day in February

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One thing that I have learned in teaching children to become writers is that many of them just don't know where to begin.  Writing is a chore because they feel that they have nothing to write or that their writing will be unfairly critiqued.  Writing is a vulnerable activity.  We all know that practice makes perfect.  That is why I believe that getting children in the habit of writing every day is a worthwhile use of your time.  

I also believe students need a safe place to write where they do not have to worry about being graded.  This is a win/win for both teacher and student.  You get your student to write every day, but you don't have an extra paper to grade.  Simply look to make sure they wrote, and encourage them to read it aloud to someone.  It could be a friend, parent, or teacher, or they could read it aloud to themselves.  Having children read aloud their own writing will help them catch their own errors.  Over time, if they stay faithful to writing daily, their writing skills will develop naturally.

Learning to think is a skill that needs to be learned.  The writing prompts that I give help students think about a wide variety of topics throughout the month.  Sometimes they are fun topics.  Sometimes they are more serious things to think about.  I give supporting questions to help them think deeper about the day's prompt.  I include a small picture on their writing page that they can choose to color in while they think of what to write.

I recommend using this writing project at the beginning of a Language Arts class.  As the children enter the classroom, they learn to settle in by reading the daily prompt and spending the first 10 -15 minutes writing freely about the day's topic.  

Homeschooling families will enjoy the flexibility that many different ages and grades can use the same daily prompt and writing pages for their daily writing assignment.

Resisting the urge to correct spelling, grammar, and sentence structure is key to helping children learn to love writing.  Let's face it, if every time you wrote something, somebody came along and told you all the things you did wrong, you would hate writing too.  While working with intervention students, the number one reason they gave for hating writing was that they always did it wrong.  As hard as it may be, let this be the one assignment where they are allowed to write whatever they want, however they want and that be it.

Learning to journal on a daily basis will benefit students and extend past graduation.  Many therapists use journaling to help patients process their thoughts, focus on blessings, and think deeply about their past, present and future.  By developing these habits now with your students, you are helping them to develop a skill that will help to keep them mentally healthy.  This benefit will outlast your normal Language Arts assignments.

At the end of the month, your students will have a wonderful compilation of thoughts written down.  They will have documented part of their own unique, wonderful story.  They will have created a keepsake.  If they continue on for the entirety of the school year, they will have a whole year's worth of writing that later on may be used as inspiration for the next best seller, and you will have played a part in helping to develop that in your student.

Lastly, it is a proven fact that the things we write by hand, we remember better than the things we type.  Writing by hand is becoming a lost art.  Use this time to develop this skill and help your student learn the joy of writing and putting pen to the paper.

If you use this product with your student, I would love to hear about how your student progresses throughout the month.  Drop me a comment and let me know.