regular writing - primary age children (also thinking to prepare for 9+ and 11+) ?

[schooling123]

I am just interested in introducing small writing tasks/ regular for my kids (primary age). This is to avoid just once a week writing tasks with the tutor, but regular short writing tasks ...which tasks would you recommend please? I thought about diary?

I think a diary is a nice idea. You could get the "one line a day" diary that covers five years and it'll become a nice keepsake.

My nearly 6 year old likes:

• Writing shopping lists
• Letters to grandparents/ tooth fairy
• Postcards to friends during holidays
• Random English / maths tests for me / her friends / her brother to complete
• Rules for games or races she's made up
• Scripts for plays

I should that spelling and legibility are a bit of a challenge sometimes but at least she's practising and enjoying it!

My ds does readworks, free writing and pobble regularly.

Article a day: read short article and make notes of new info you found/vocab.
Free writing: write anything about a topic comes into your mind without stopping for a minute(s)
Pobble: follow the web suggestion or create own story inspired by the daily picture.

Takes less than 5 minutes, except for pobble when he wants to write longer story.

Do they like writing? If so, why not encourage them to suggest their own projects?
If they hate it, it will be like pulling teeth regardless.

My ds used to do the diary when younger, he did write quite regularly about simple things and shared it with us. I know he still writes, but don't want to show it to us anymore.
So, I think diary is good, but at your dc's age, I don't think it's good for the purpose of practicing writing skills, unless they don't mind sharing, or you are just happy for them to write regularly and not worried about structure/grammar/spellings.

I think to keep it interesting you will need to keep it varied; you could try:

Film reviews
Notes on an article/documentary
Letter writing
Diary entries
Create your own recipe cards
Guide to the local town
Information booklet about a place you frequent often
Short stories
Instructions how to make or do something
Research for a holiday or day trip
Write a short news story about something they did at the weekend
Poems
Riddles (what am I?)
Book reviews