Any ideas about Christmas literacy project?

[squashpie]

My DS is being encouraged to write more and his teacher has just suggested to me that I could encourage him to write a story or any kind of writing while at home over the Christmas period, if he's up for it. But she didn't give me any clues as to what to write. Anyone got any ideas for a story title, or ways to think of a story idea, or some other Christmas/ New year literacy project? Or any websites which might have suggestions?

he loves making up stories and has good ideas but is very slow at writing and his teacher thinks he just needs to do a lot of it to get quicker/ more used to it.

TIA!

Well you said it can be a story, or any kind of writing - so maybe a story is a bit much of a drag for him.
What about getting him to do a Christmas word search that other family members can complete?
Or an acrostic poem using the letters from the word 'Christmas'
A letter to Santa?
Thank you letters to relatives after Christmas?

One way to speed up a slow writer is simply to copy sentences and paragraphs accurately, about 15 words per minute. You don't say how old our child is and I am assuming Y3/4 for this.

Sorry, he's year 2. I think his teacher had in mind more of a long piece of writing like a story or something because she wanted him to write a good amount but in the set time.

You could set a timer for ten minutes with a reward at five minutes. When finished do an illustration and make a special binder with card and string and he has a book! Aim on building his confidence so give him lots of help and ideas as he writes. Do it in the kitchen so you are around for chatting but busy with other things. Have some music in the background to make it jolly. He might suprise you!

Story titles:

The very tall knight and the very small dragon
A Dinosaur's Tale
What Santa got for Christmas

The Very Silly Teacher
Jack Sprat ate all the Chocolate
Sportacus and the Sports Candy

You could also give him a list of key words to help.

Our Trip to the Cinema by DS

Popcorn
Film
Fizzy
Screen
Car
Snow
Buzz
Funny

The BBC learning website (can't remember its real name) is very good.

As is the TES connect site.

What is the time frame and how many words does teacher want? (It's not hard to scale down the Y3/4 writing speed.) Be more specific and then set a suitable target for your child. The task is very vague, and maybe the teacher needs to clarify.

I really think you need to find a real life problem/reason/audience for him to write to or about.

Malaleuca's suggestion about getting him to copy sentences is completely wrong, and guaranteed to switch him off writing for life!

HI think it's more important that he just writes as often as possible to start with, and then you could gradually increase the amount he writes.

To start with, he could write:

Lists (shopping, Father Christmas, things he wants to do in the holidays etc)

Postcards

Secret messages

Labels

Instructions (for a game he's made or played)

A fact sheet about dinosaurs or whatever interests him

Could Father Christmas "accidentally" leave an interesting object and your son write about who it might belong to? Write a character description of the person. Perhaps write to Father Christmas and explain about the gift and ask how it can get to it's intended owner

Thanks so much for all your imaginative suggestions! Will see what we can incorporate into our Christmas time. Your idea Mrz made me laugh. Think we've all had occasions where we've received something and thought "you bought this for me? Why?"

Malaleuca's suggestion about increasing writing speed by copying is not wrong but well-proven. OP says that generating ideas is not the problem, which is good as usually children don't know what to write about. There are many good ideas for topics given, but none for the mechanics of increasing writing speed.
You need to analyse what the exact nature of the learning task is, and work out ways to deliver sufficient practice for it to spill over into everyday school tasks. Copying is less demanding than generating ideas, constructing sentences, then writing it down. Scribing your child's production for him to write out is another to 'copy'.

Malaleuca - Your suggestion will simply lead to boredom and disaffection. We are talking about a 6 year old boy, during his Christmas holidays.

Not in my experience Littlefish. Y1/2 are usually more than happy to have an adult scribe their ideas and then copy them out. It is,after all, half the work!

I agree with littlefish copying teaches nothing.

....except speeding up writing.

I agree that copying does speed up writing!

I agree that copying is boring!

Couple of suggestions:

Make a competition for him - choose a short paragraph from a loved book, and get him to copy it and time it with a stop watch. Ask him to do this five times and to try and beat his time? Small prize or reward?

Next day do it again with a different paragraph.

Or

Do a 'template' for thank you letters, and get him to copy it out leaving 'blanks' for the present and the name. Again time it and try and speed it up each time - get him to write the times down, and a reward for improving the time?

Personally I find copying slows writing speed especially for those children who find it a problem to begin with.

How about getting him to draw a cartoon story with captions, speech bubbles and sound effects. you could take turns to drawb and write part of the story, or he could write it for you in installments to be read to you before his bedtime story.

How did Santa get out of the chimney when he got stuck? or other ideas above?