Prompts

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Home : 2001 : February : 4

Prompts
By Jana

Judy:
I always give my kids some kind of 'direction.' I try to make it as open-ended as possible, so that they can take it in a million possible directions, but I have found that for my kids that really struggle, if i
leave it totally open (like a 'true' journal entry would be, where we write about our experiences, etc.) it would be really difficult for them to come up with something at all.
And what i've found is that, by giving them a little structure, they pull in their own experiences and end up relating their writing to themselves anyhow. You can get really creative with prompts... or you can tailor

the prompts so they fit in line with what the goals are of your curriculum (like if you're working on comparisons or sequence or voice, etc.)

I know what you mean by saying you feel constricted at times to add in new things. However, sometimes when i take a step back i begin to feel guilty that i'm bombarding my kids with way too much that they simply don't benefit from. (Activities that aren't developmentally appr.) I guess our job is to find the middle ground. Not so easy!!

About the "Squiggle Books," i'll let you know. As i said, i think they'll be great for that morning time that sometimes simply gets 'wasted' on nothing. Hopefully it will turn out to be a really creative writing activity that they really enjoy!!