Encourage creative writing skills through journaling with your elementary aged child by using Lego. Whether your child is a reluctant writer or the next journalist, using his/her Lego creations as a story starter is a fun way further develop writing skills, grammar, and spelling!
My son falls into the “reluctant writer” camp.
I think it is because he lacks confidence in what he is doing and simply telling a child “start writing” can be quite intimidating for a visual learner. To make the process fun and open-ended, I paired creative writing with something he loves to do– build with Legos! Journaling with Legos taps into many different creative processes.
Creating our Lego Journal begins with building a scene or object out of Legos. We have gathered quite a Lego stash from birthday and Christmas gifts. Have you? My son is most interested in creating sports scenes and/or new vehicles as you will see in the Lego creations he built.
Journaling with LEGO
To prepare for the actual writing process, I took a picture and printed out my son’s Lego creations. I taped them into a blank art journal with some colorful tape.
For his first creation, we journaled together. I started the story and then my son came up with the next sentence, and we continued until he was satisfied with his story.
For the next story, I encouraged him to tell me about he pieces he used to get his creative juices flowing by asking him questions pertaining to the elements of a story:
- What did he build?
- Who is in the scene?
- What is happening?
- Why?
- Where is this taking place?
I am proud to say that he wrote the story himself and he had a great time coming up with a story about the World Series!
If you have a child who loves to build but is still to young to write, you could easily have him/her tell you the story and write it out for them. This is a great way to get kids excited about the writing process!
Keeping a journal is a great keepsake and reminder of progress in your child’s imagination and writing skills. Happy building and writing!
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