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SUMMER JOURNALING

A great way to keep kids writing during the summer is to have a summer journal. Give the book a fun title like Matthew's Summer Adventures or Alyssa's Guidebook to Summer Fun and let your child decorate the outside.

Now, the writing begins! Make journal writing fun by letting your child write in different colors of ink or pencil, and add decorations and/or pictures to each page.

How much your child writes will depend on his or her age. Rising kindergarteners should have plenty of space to draw elaborate pictures, but may have a difficult time writing more than a letter or word to describe each part of the story. Rising first graders will be writing a few sentences, while children in 5th grade should be able to write a few paragraphs about an idea or an experience they had.

There are some summer days when the words will flow easily (vacations, trips to the amusement park, or special adventures with friends). Ask your child to write about his/her favorite part of the day. He or she could draw pictures to go with the story or attach mementos of the day to the journal (i.e., tickets to the amusement park, a four-leaf clover found at the park).

Here are some jump starters for writing on the more typical summer days:

Silly Questions

• Would you rather be a bumble bee or a house fly and why?
• Would you rather be able to become invisible or camouflaged and why?
• Would you rather live in space or under the ocean and why?

Crazy Connections
Give your child three unrelated word and ask him/her to use them all in one sentence. (Example: frog, hat, spaceship -- The frog put on his hat and jumped into the spaceship.) Then ask your child to write a story and/or draw a picture about that silly sentence.

What if...

• the world was made of chocolate?
• you won a million dollars?
• you could safely jump as high as the clouds?
• you could fly your own plane anywhere you wanted to go?

Imaginary Adventures

• A boy and his dog go to the park...
• A girl discovers a magical fairy house...
• A boy gets to join a famous band sing on stage...
• A girl who finds the end of the rainbow and can walk up onto it...

Interesting Instructions
Ask your child to write down the sequence for:

• Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
• Baking a pizza with his or her favorite toppings
• Planting a garden
• Making a paper airplane

Writer's Theater
Ask your child to write a script of his or her day for a personal production. Sit back and enjoy as he or she acts it out!

Have a great summer and happy writing!


Toni M. Schulken
MS, OTR/L

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