Nursery Rhyme Letter Writing

You and your kids probably know several nursery rhymes by heart now. But what happens after the story is over? This kid writing prompt encourages creative thinking and character study as the children put themselves in the story to write a letter after the nursery rhyme!

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As our homeschooling journey continues, I am learning more and more about my children's individual needs and strengths. Particularly with our preschooler E I have found that her curriculum level often surpasses her age and interest level. It can be quite the challenge to find or create an activity that is developmentally appropriate for her as a preschooler while still challenging her academic mind. Of course, our philosophy here at Still Playing School is to always present fun and playful learning so while we never push our kids we do want to challenge them on their level!

So nursery rhymes. What can we do with nursery rhymes? She can read them. She has many of them memorized and enjoys them. Lately in our other studies we've been discussing characters and letter writing! We will write letters to the characters in the nursery rhyme from the point of view of another character! We love books like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Seriously, Cinderella Is So Annoying where we hear a different point of view or a continuation of a much loved fairy tale. This project is along that same line of creative thinking.

An important part of kid writing is modeling. As a classroom teacher I modeled writing just as much as I asked my students to write independently. It was vital for them to hear me think out loud, plan my sentences, sound out words, and consider punctuation. We read Hickory Dickory Dock. I modeled what the mouse might write to the clock in a letter.

Next I asked E to write a letter from Jill to Jack after their big fall down the hill! It took some discussion for her to put herself in Jill's point of view. "Imagine you just saw your friend Noah fall down a hill. Then you fell down after him. What would you say to him?" As soon as she out put herself in Jill's shoes she was off to the writing! She asked "Jack" if he was okay and then added, "I was scared!"

I love the freedom that homeschooling provides for writing, In this picture E is sitting on our stairs (her choice!) writing with a clipboard and a golf pencil. Small pencils are the best tools to teach proper grip to little hands (not large ones)!

While this is a preschool post, this idea is adaptable to many ages! Model the writing for your preschoolers after a nursery rhyme unit, ask kindergarten or first grade students to get together with a partner to write the letters, and challenge older elementary or gifted students to write the letters independently.

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