Ah, summer. The beach, camping, BBQ’s, and vacations! In the northern hemisphere, we’re wrapping up the school year and looking forward to a well-deserved break.

We hope kids will be swimming, playing, and sleeping in. But we all know that after a few weeks or once the first rainy day comes along, they use the time-worn phrase, ’I’m bored. What can I do?’ Well, that’s when you can encourage your child to write!

Here are a few fun prompts to get them started. These prompts may be more suitable for older students, but young students would certainly enjoy some of these prompts too (with support). Check out a previous blog post for more prompts. Don’t forget to check out the summer image bank too!

Non-Fictional Writing Prompts

1. Did you know that? Research fun summer topics like motorboats or waterskiing, and write down some facts.
2. Interview the people in your family and ask what their favourite flavor of ice cream is and why. Write a page for each answer.
3. Take a poll. Ask friends and family what they like better. Fans vs air conditioning? Camping vs hotels? Ocean vs lakes? Watermelon vs cherries? Create a book to share the results.
4. Take pictures of the fruits and vegetables growing in your garden. Write a recipe book of what you could make with each ingredient.
5. Write a long list of all the things that you like about summer. How many things can you come up with? Then make another book listing what you don’t like about summer.

Fictional Writing Prompts

1. Imagine that you filled the pool at the bottom of the water slide with something other than water, what would it be? How does the adventure unfold from there?
2. Write an episode of the ’Game of Drones.’ Create characters and names for the queen, drones, and worker bees. How will they defend their kingdom (hive) from their enemies? Who wins the battle?
3. You’re in your backyard and you suddenly shrink to the size of a mole. You decide to go on an expedition through a maze of long underground tunnels. Who do you meet? What exciting and dangerous things happen along the way?
4. What if the food in your fridge and freezer could talk? What would they say? Create funny names and characters like Peyton Popsicle, Sarah Salad, or Hayden Hot Dog.
5. You go fishing with Grandpa and you catch a magic fish that grants you five wishes. What would they be?

Teachers, please share the link to this blog post with parents via e-mail, text, digital portfolio sharing sites (eg. Seesaw, FreshGrade), or your school/class website. We’ve also created a shareable WriteReader book with these prompts. In consideration of the environment, we suggest that you share the link rather than printing multiple books.

Parents, have a wonderful summer with your children! Make time to have water fights and watch for falling stars together. We also hope that you will make time to support your child’s literacy growth over the summer in fun and engaging ways. WriteReader is a learning tool that accomplishes this and will make you feel good about screen time with your child.

Happy writing and reading!