I realized the other day that a lot of the activities we do are pretty structured and I wanted to offer an activity that allowed for more creative thinking. I saw an idea to do drawing prompts which looked like fun. Then I remembered another idea to encourage creativity that I used when I was teaching third grade. We used to give the kids squiggle papers.
Drawing prompts are where you start a picture and allow the children to add details and complexity to the picture.
For example, I started this picture and posed the question, who lives in this tree?
Anya finished the picture and this is what she did. This is Lilly the squirrel who lives in a tree in the water. She's small so she can't swim, and has to stay in her tree. But, when she gets bigger she will learn how to swim like a big girl.
Squiggle pictures are a lot of fun too. Basically you start with a squiggle or doodle on a paper and then have your kids create a picture out of the lines that are already there by adding to it. You can have the kids tell you the story about their pictures or write a story about it if they are old enough. This is an example squiggle page that I did.
Then Anya added to it and expanded the picture. I wrote her story for her. It is about a girl who is decorating her Christmas tree, but one of the ornaments is lost.
When you are writing the story, make sure to write exactly what they say. Don't edit or change words because part of the charm is "hearing" them tell you about it every time you read the page.
It's pretty fun to see where their imagination can take them!
When you are writing the story, make sure to write exactly what they say. Don't edit or change words because part of the charm is "hearing" them tell you about it every time you read the page.
It's pretty fun to see where their imagination can take them!
If you want some premade squiggle pages that you can just print out, you can download them here.
When you click on the link, there are a lot of ads on the page. You want to click the small grey download button right beneath the box that says view document. You will need to sign in to download the paper. You can sign up for a free 4shared account or use your social media outlet to download. Please leave a message below if you have any problems or questions.
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