Write a 1-Minute Play

by | Jul 31, 2020 | Children's

Recently the St Croix Falls Festival Theatre hosted a writing contest for grown-ups. They asked people to write a play that 1 minute long, and they read the best ones aloud on YouTube. So I wondered: What would a 1-minute play festival for kids look like? So...

Frame Yourself!

by | Jul 24, 2020 | Children's

In this fun writing prompt, author Jason Reynolds talks about framing things that are important to him. One example he gives is that he has framed the contents of his grandmother’s wallet. Another is a pair of jeans he wore when he worked retail. Yes, he has a...

Flash Writing!

by | Jul 17, 2020 | Children's

Hello!… Today… we… will… be… doing… another… writing… exercise! Do you ever feel like your writing ideas move at a sloth’s pace? Today we’ll work on loosening up your writing muscles and getting ideas to flow...

Make Your Own Synonyms with Jason Reynolds

by | Jul 10, 2020 | Children's

It can be fun to play with words! In this video, author Jason Reynolds challenges us to invent new words that mean something similar to words we already know. He turns “jump” into “updown”. I might turn “dandelion” into...

Writing a Poem, and an Announcement!

by | Jul 3, 2020 | Children's

This week we’ll explore writing poetry. Erm, excuse me. “Poetry” is such a broad topic. This week we’ll explore rhyming, and poetry topics — what do you want to write a poem about? Take a blank piece of paper, and make a list. Write down...

Make Your Own Comic Strip

by | Jun 26, 2020 | Children's

Do you prefer pictures over words? Maybe you would prefer to write a comic strip! Here are several ways you can experiment with cartooning. Jarrett Lerner has some wonderful comic strip-drawing activities. You will have to scroll down to find half-drawn comics for you...