Writing Activities

Here is where you will find all the writing activities we have posted. These activities can be done by all ages. If your child has trouble writing, have them draw a picture or you can have them tell you what to write and you can help them write the poem or activity. These activities are meant to be fun while also keeping your child engaged and learning. Please feel free to share your poems or written activities with us at info@americascorescleveland.org.

Letter Writing

This activity focuses on how to write a letter. This is a great activity to help keep your child stay in contact with family and friends they might not be able to see in person right now. A great way to keep this idea moving is to become pen pals with someone. If you child can’t write a full letter, trying having them write a sentence and drawing pictures instead!

 Riddle Poetry

Let’s have some fun today learning about different fruits and vegetables! Riddle Poetry is fun and easy. Research a fruit and vegetable, write down a few clues about that chosen fruit or vegetable and try to have others guess what it is! This is a fun way to challenge your kids and can even be a fun competition!

 Comics with a Purpose

We all have our own stories to tell right now. Comics are a great way to tell those stories. You can have your child explore how they are feeling right now, what life looks like at home under quarantine or what they plan on doing when life returns to normal. Be sure to help them share it with friends and family, either through email or by sending pictures with your phone.

 Wish Poetry

Ask your child if they have ever made a wish? Do they wish on stars or on the birthday candles? Do they have a wish to see a family member, play with a friend or get back on the soccer field? Have them write a wish poem about what they wish right now. This is a great way to help them think through what is going on and work through some of the wishes they have right now.

 Newspaper Article

Newspaper articles are a great way to work through what is going on right now. Have your child interview a family member and call friends. Have them think through what they want to write about and help them design the page to look like a newspaper!

Describing our Community

This week’s writing lesson will focus on community. Right now we all need to come together and help one another. These lessons will help your child think through their community and who is in their community that is helping them. This first activity is all about describing the wonderful elements of our communities.

 Building a Community

Today’s activity is working together to build a community! Work with your child and follow the steps to create your own community. This is a great project to work on together. You can draw it with crayons or use items you have around the house. Be as creative as you like!

 Thank You Cards for Community Heroes

There are a number of community heroes that are helping us through this situation. Work with your child to create a thank you card for these heroes, whether they are doctors, nurses or truck drivers, and grocery store workers. Help your child share a picture of their card with us and we can help get it out to those who should see it. When it is safe and healthy again to go out we can work on getting the physical cards delivered.

Recipe Poems

Our community heroes have a lot of characteristics that make them amazing. Use this activity to help your child think through all these amazing aspects of these people. You can focus on their kindness, courage, or how big their hearts must be.

Acrostic Poem

Acrostic Poems are simple and fun. This is a great beginning activity and is great for any age! Choose a name of a friend, community member or they can choose their favorite word. Have fun with it!

 Social Entrepreneurship

For this week we are going to focus on entrepreneurship. This should be familiar for our Middle School students, from the One Hen programming they take part in. For our younger students, this is new information that will get them excited and prepared for the Middle School programming. This first lesson is to introduce the concept of social entrepreneurship and make sure everyone understands what that term means.

Entrepreneur Mindset

Entrepreneurs have a certain mindset that helps them succeed. Look at the different mindsets and help your child understand what they each mean. Help them figure out which ones they have and which ones they want to learn. A great idea is to help your child spend this time learning those mindsets.

Product Ideas 

Coming up with a unique product idea is one of the most important parts of being an entrepreneur. Start by selecting an object or snack in your home and building on that idea to come up with a product that someone would like to buy. Be as creative as you can!

 Pitching a Product

Have you ever seen a commercial and it convinced you to buy something? Today’s activity is about making a commercial about a product idea you have. Work with your child to write about where their product comes from, who makes it, and how it can help someone. You can have them make a poster or even record a video. We would love for you to share the commercial with us!

 Cost/Revenue/Profit

This last activity in our entrepreneurship series goes over the idea of cost, revenue, and profit. The activity asks your child to build a tower using as little support as possible.  You are then able to work with them to calculate how much it costs to build their tower and what their profit was at the end.

 Conversation Poetry

Conversation Poetry is an activity that allows you to get creative with your child. Have them think of two ideas, peoples, or things that can talk to one another. Work with them to come up with a conversation that the ideas or people can have. Help them write the poem in alternating lines, like a script.

 Haiku

Haiku’s are short poems, usually about nature, that are written in a very specific format. They are 3 lines following the pattern, 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This might be a more challenging type of poem for the students. This would be a great lesson to work together with them on. If your child struggles with it have them write a poem about nature, remember we want them to have fun and be creative!

 Rhyming

When we think of poems we think of rhyming. This is one of the easier versions of poems to write. Help your kids think of rhyming words and then put them together for a poem.

Persona Poetry

A fun form of poetry is giving an animal or object human characteristics. Help your child pick an object or animal to write about. This is a great time to let your child’s imagination run!

 I Remember Poetry

Our memories can help us write some amazing and heartfelt poems. Work with your child to think through some of the happiest or most fun memories. Have them make a list of the details in those memories. Work with your child to write a poem about that memory and what it means to them.

 Alphabet Poetry

This writing activity is where you start each new line with the next letter in the alphabet, such as A, then B, then C, etc. The idea is to write full sentences but if your child struggles with that, have them write one word that start with each letter. Try to keep it in some theme, such as Spring or soccer.

 Shape Poetry

This writing lesson gives your child a chance to exercises their artistic and writing muscles. The easiest way to complete this poem is to have them choose an object, draw that object as large as they can and then write their poem inside that object. If they are unable to draw the object large enough to fit the poem they can write it on the side or under the object. Encourage them to decorate the poem when they are finished.

 Descriptive Language

This activity is a fun one where your child gets a chance to create their own magical world. Encourage them to think as creatively as they can. This is a made-up world which can have anything they want. Make sure they are using as much detail as possible when talking about this new world.

 Adjectives

Our lesson today is about adjectives. The following four lessons will be about different types of figurative language and parts of speech. What your child writes during these lessons can be used to create a larger poem later. Ensure your child keeps this paper somewhere they can find it later as they will keep adding to it over the next few lessons.

 Verbs

During this lesson we focus on verbs or action words. Watch Coach Ramona and Coach Matthew’s videos about Defenders and Goalkeepers and have them make notes about the verbs that are used. Have them think about the actions they take on the soccer field from kicking to throwing, to stop the ball. Be sure to have them keep these with adjectives to ensure that they can add to the list next week.

Onomatopoeia

This writing lesson is fun though a little difficult. Work with your child to think through the sounds they hear on the soccer field. Ask them what it sounds like when the ball hits their foot or goes through the net. Keep the list close because you will add one more type of speech to this list before writing a soccer poem.

Similes

Similes are a simple way to compare two things. The biggest hint if a comparison is a simile is the use of the words like or as in the comparison. Help your child think of how to compare themselves to other things. What do they run like? How hard do they kick? How happy are they when they score a goal?