5 Kindergarten Writing Activities to Excite Your Child to Write Today!

When the newly sharpened pencils make their debut, you swear you see your young writer avert his gaze and try to find the quickest exit.

It’s not that writing itself has him down, it’s that at this stage, paper quickly follows pencil, which tends to signal stranded sit-down time.

Use the following kindergarten kids’ writing activities to turn an oft-dreaded task on its head. With these tips on how to help your child write, your little one will be clamoring to write.

1. Shaving cream writing

The first time I tried to get my child to put crayon to paper (hoping to give him a head start in the writing game), the resulting aggressive scribbles and side-glances made me wonder if I’d made the right choice.

The scribbles got better. The side glances… eh.

Using a different medium altogether for writing will pique your child’s curiosity and won’t hearken back to the paper and crayon bouts of yore.

Shaving cream writing will allow your child to practice making words by exciting his senses. This activity has the added benefit of making history of those stubborn crayon marks.

Here’s what you do:

1. Squirt a mega dollop of shaving cream on a bare table and let your little one go to town. The first time your child gets to “write” with shaving cream, there will be a wild frenzy of the stuff sprawled across the table. Before you dismiss this as a failure, know that it’s part of the process.

2. After your child has gotten the shaving cream sillies out, challenge him to write or draw using his pointer finger (of his writing hand).
   

   Photo by Steven & Courtney Johnson & Horwitz / CC

The great thing about writing in shaving cream is that mistakes are wiped away in a millisecond. No need to shamefully turn a pencil around and rub away only to have the proof of your errors always faintly visible.

2. Write about the day’s events

“What did you do today?”

If you’re lucky when you ask this of your kindergartener, you’ll get an indifferent, “Oh, we just played.”

If you’re unlucky, you’ll hear the almost coughed up, “nothing.”

Give your kid some credit. If someone asked this of you, you’d just as likely say, “Stuff. Okay?”

Pry some details out of that kid by having him reflect and write. Sounds boring — but wait! Have him draw out one thing he did during his day. Use the following as guiding questions.

• What made you curious?
• What confused you?
• What made you tired?
• What made you laugh?

Kindergarten is jam-packed with events — he didn’t just sit there, I promise.

Pictorial representations of our day may seem hokey, but National Geographic reports that it’s the way our ancestors first began to write.

What did our ancestors do all day? Well, there are cave paintings showing wimpy stick figures going after bison-looking creatures, so we assume they were getting their hunt on.

Your questions will (hopefully) not stir up such violent events and will instead bring back happy playground memories.

Once you get your child going, you’ll find he loves to recall the details of his day; it helps him clarify his learning and most importantly, it teaches him to organize his thoughts to make his writing (or in this case drawing) clearer.

Further challenge your child by having him label his masterpiece. After all, how else will you be able to differentiate between the spider-like figure that’s supposed to be Johnny and the triangular blob that’s meant to be Susie?

3. Chalk letter water painting

Sure you could print out some tracing worksheets, sneak off to snack and hope that minutes later when you’re verbally taken aback by an “All done!” you’ll find that your writer has neatly stayed within all those pre-dotted lines.

Ha. Ha.

Truthfully neither of you is a fan of those worksheets. You’re always cursing yourself for forgetting where you left the printer paper, and your child is secretly hoping you never find it.

The point of those worksheets is to get your child to practice proper letter formation, a key component of many kindergarten writing activities. Yawn.

There’s a better way — chalk letter water painting! The lengthy descriptor might make it sound complicated, but it isn’t.

Tracing with a paintbrush and water

1. Head outside.
2. Find a space on the pavement that you’d like to be your child’s canvas.
3. Grab some sidewalk chalk and write the words or phrases you’d like your child to practice.
4. Let your child paint over your writing using a paintbrush dipped in water (as opposed to actual paint).

Your child will be thrilled to be somewhere different when writing and will be glad to be “painting” words. Added bonus: the water on the paintbrush will change the color of the chalk a bit, adding another wow factor to this activity.

When your child is ready, have him do both the chalk writing and the painting over. Double writing whammy!

4. Painting lines

Another way to practice letter formation without worksheets is by having your child paint lines.

Use any color and any type of paint you have lying around. For this to be truly effective, encourage your child to paint lines starting from the top of his easel (or sheet of paper) and come down.

If it’s circles you’d like him to make (to practice those curvy letters like Capital G’s, C’s, Q’s and lowercase a’s and o’s) encourage him to curve to the right to close his loops.

Painting will build those strokes into an automatic skill. When your child sits down to confront those kindergarten writing activities at school, he will have the muscle memory of line formation already set and will transfer this easy-peasy.

5. Greeting card workshop

The best way to emphasize purposeful and communicative writing to your child is by having him make a message to give to someone else.

No need to wait for a special occasion like a birthday, Teacher Appreciation Day or a major holiday to get your little one in the card-making spirit.

Lead the way by creating a special card just for your kindergartener. Write a special message and decorate it with stickers or pictures of things they like. This will make your child feel like a rock star and will inspire him to reciprocate the gesture.

They key is to emphasize the fun in this writing activity. Don’t urge them to write an essay to grandma about his choir recital. Let him call the shots. Today it’s a simple, “I love you” to someone. Tomorrow it’s several sentences divulging to someone the torturous things mommy once had him do to get him to write.