Mumsnet users share their top tips for encouraging their children to write, with Premier League

[EllieMumsnet]

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Writing, be it in a diary, a poem, a short story or even a letter can be a great way to help children explore their creativity whilst inspiring them to write more. With that being said the Premier League would like to know your top tips for encouraging you DC to write more and explore their creative side.

Here’s what the Premier League have to say: “Our Premier League Primary Stars education programme uses the appeal of football to inspire kids to learn, be active and develop important life skills. More than 15,000 primary schools use the free teaching resources for maths, English, PSHE and PE and take advantage of incentives and competitions available for their school. However, sometimes young writers need a little extra boost and that’s why we are proud to bring back our Writing Stars poetry competition, which last year inspired more than 25,000 children to write a poem. This year’s competition theme is diversity and, with the support of a fantastic judging panel including singer Olly Murs, former footballer Rio Ferdinand, Children’s Laureate Lauren Child and poet Joseph Coelho, we are encouraging children to pick up a pen and explore what it means to be beautifully different and wonderfully the same. To read some of the poems already submitted by celebrities, please click here.”

Do you find that reading to your children frequently helps develop their imagination and also inspires them to write stories too? How about encouraging your children to keep a diary to write their everyday experiences in? Do you make sure that your DC write thank you letters after their birthday and Christmas in order to help them practice writing? Do you go on days out that will help them explore the things around them and develop their imagination?

Whatever your top tips are, share them on the thread below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

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Read books and have them imaginative play with random things

I think reading encourages writing. The Radio 2 500 words competition is good.

We always read to them and told stories and encouraged them to tell stories too, even when they were teeny. Once they were bigger and found writing a whole story quite a task I always used to get them to tell me the story first and we'd write it together, with me writing it as they told it and then we'd change bits to make it flow better. I always tell them that if they can tell a story, they can write it down. Encouraging imaginative play works wonders with younger ones as they are actually making up stories as they play.

Freeplay, arts and crafts.

Mine are too young for writing so looking for tips here 😂

Always encouraging my DS to read his books. Always read a bedtime story and get him to make up his own

I write myself. So does my husband. My son has been, ‘working on a novel’ since he was 5.

It’s our career, so he sees himself as being involved in the family business!

writing christmas cards, letters to santa and making presents for the grandparents, including making christmas lantens, stained glass windows and christmas snowflakes for the house.

Drawing a picture on a sheet of A4 paper and writing a short story underneath on some lines that I've drawn on for my youngest and my oldest likes to staple together some pages to make his own short book and write a story and add illustrations

We always have craft time each weekend

Going out into nature and encouraging them to write about what he’s sees! This makes it real, allows him to learn new plants and animals. He can write about anything they see as it has to be something he enjoys! Also reading to him and engaging him in conversation always helps

get some books from the works bookshop they have some great handwriting ones

Encourage reading and a love of books from a very early age

I always found this one hard, but just writing down anything really. There were always books, notepads and pens everwhere, and we were always reading. Having said that my son went into computing, when he went to Uni, I gave him a pile of pads and pens, and the following July he brought the whole lot back unused

I just sort of let them “go for it” when they were little. We always had creative stuff around and they always loved making stuff. We were never really too focused on the end result - more enjoying the process.

I always read with my children.

My little one can’t write yet but I already read to him lots and encourage him to use crayons so hopefully that will help as he gets bigger

We try to leave markmaking opportunities out in the house.. chalkboards, pens and paper, crayons, aquadoodle etc.. We encourage the children to write letters to say thank you for Birthday gifts/ Christmas gifts... our children love drawing so don't need a lot of encouragement.

Take the kids out and about on adventures, exploring the world around them and encourage talking and drawing and writing about their adventures.

Our DD can't enough of writing and it's not something we actively encouraged. Every time we go out she wants to buy a new note pad, she loves it! Some of the things she writes bring tears to my eyes though, the thoughts that some children have are mind blowing sometimes.

We encourage our boys to write thankyou notes for any presents received, and also to write out their own birthday and christmas cards to friends. Our eldest is Autistic so hates writing but he will write his name in a card to friends, but our younger two sons both love to write and take pride in their handwriting already. Our middle son recently had his story chosen out of his year at school as the best piece of work so we are very proud of him for this.

We draw and doodle daily either with colouring books, blank sheets or the wipe clean kind. Also reading is fantastic and sometimes we read a story and everyone draws what they think is happening or they look like and it's always lots of fun, and the kids learn that there's no right or wrong way to doodle.

I find that reading naturally encourages a child's creative side as it is actively encouraging their imagination. We then went to pottery studios on weekend or art clubs so that we were creating for fun :)

My children do a 'crafty readers' session, where they make something based on a book. They also have a feelings journal, where they learn to control their emotions and they are able to turn this into stories as well, so boosting creativity.

I'm liking some of the ideas in this thread, very interesting.

My daughter has a cute little notebook and a fluffy pen she keeps next to her bed, I got it for her so she could write down her feelings. I also tell her to write little stories to tell her sister, it seems to work.

Read lots to improve vocabulary, encourage them with questions and play with their toys with them as this helps with their imagination!