Writing
Kids Just Wanna Have Fun:
Adding a Little Character
to Your Play
By Cindy M. Jones
Character play is a hands-on activity that increases
a child’s imagination, which brings writing alive.
One of the biggest obstacles a parent can face in teaching creative writing is the hard work and no-fun mindset
that the word writing conjures up. A few
simple ideas can help break down those
barriers and add some fun to a sometimes overwhelmingly hard subject for
both the teacher and the student.
Character play is a hands-on activity that increases a child’s imagination,
which brings writing alive. It’s why certain books become their favorites. A story that has a flat, unrealistic, or unidentifiable character will be the last thing a
student will want to read; the same theory applies to the writing process.
How can you help your student bring
a character to life? One way is to make
a story board. A story board is a simple,
inexpensive, fun project to do with any
age group. The idea is to find charac-
ters in magazines, through a web search
(with parent supervision), newspapers,
and old books (or coloring books for the
younger crowd). Once the character has
been decided upon, the image is cut out
and glued or taped to a poster board or
construction paper.
