Writing for Wigglers

By Alison Moore Smith

In our homeschool, we like to use many different methods to teach—and create interest in—the topics we are studying. Creating stories can be very rewarding, but is sometimes hard for children who have wiggly bodies and little hands to write out the great adventures they hold in their brains. Here are some ways to keep the juices flowing while the fine motor coordination catches up.

Round Robin Stories

This oral tradition is one of our favorites. The first person briefly sets up the story. Then each person takes a turn adding only a sentence or two, picking up where the last person left off. Everyone, including our three-year-old ("No, Mom! Three-and-a-half!" she reminds me) gets a turn at center-stage. It works best to predetermine when the story will end. You can keep going for a certain period of time or until each person has had a certain number of turns, etc.

Rarely do we complete a story without most of us bursting into loud laughter. And still, amazingly, we are learning a great deal about characters and story line and climax and detail and speaking and language. And no one stopped to raise a hand once!

Puppet Masters

If you have any puppets (or can make some), encourage your children to make up stories and give a puppet show. When our two oldest daughters were young, they would create elaborate puppet shows, and then present them along with tickets and refreshments to the family audience.

Act It Out

Improvisions is just story telling on the fly with actions. Give a child a prop and ask them to create a story using it without any time to prepare. The more sensible they can make it the better.

Alternately, give them a prop and have them use it in a way it was not intended to be used as an integral part of their story.

Extemporaneous Stories

Impromptu teaches you to think on your feet. It is a great exercise for children, even if they aren't yearning to enter politics. Try putting a number of topics on pieces of paper. Before each person's turn, have then choose a piece of paper. Then give them one to two minutes to prepare a speech about it.

You can do this in your family or in any group setting. A number of years ago I used this as an activity for the youth in my church, complete with judges and prizes. It was a huge hit and everyone had fun.

Take a Dictation

Remove the barriers that coordination and spelling pose by playing scribe to your child. As they tell the story, write or type what they are saying. If you know shorthand (does anyone learn this anymore?) all the better, because little mouths can move very quickly.

If you can't keep up with your child and don't want her to slow down, try...

Fast Forward

Use a blank tape and a tape recorder. It takes a five year old only about as many minutes to learn how to push the play and record buttons. Most computers have the same capability, too. And kids love to hear themselves (over and over and over). You may find that these stories become valued heirlooms. Although we have lots of videotape, there is something very personal about audiotapes. They tend to involve much less showing off and goofiness (at least in our family of hams). We have audiotapes of our 13-year-old when she was only four talking about her favorite things. It is a cherished piece of family history.