Calling all parents, summer is the time for fun and relaxation for everyone, esp the kids. However, you don’t want them to lose some of the writing skills that they learned during the school year. Here are some fun things to do to keep their creative juices. flowing.

  When I was a kid I remember having a pen pal in France that I kept in contact with for many years, I so enjoyed getting her letters, she understood English. Little did I  know that communicating to her in this manner would help to improve my writing skills. One year my students had penpals from all around the world and they loved hearing from them.   
Here are some penpal links:

• http://www.linguistic-funland.com/addapal.html
• http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/
• https://www.reference.com/family/can-pen-pals-kids-b5170517e3e3ff73?qo=cdpArticles

In this age of technology, your children are probably on the computer or their tablet all the time. If this is the case, you can encourage them to write a summer blog about anything that they are interested in. You can help by giving them ideas and proofreading with them. There are many free blog sites that you can use.   
Free blogging links:

•        www.blogger.com
•        http://kidblog.org/home/
•        http://kidsblogclub.com/

Looking for some interesting topics, here are a few:

•         Going to camp.
•         A family camping trip.
•         Sports
•         How to do something
•         The family pet
•         How to play computer games.
•         Cooking
•         How to make a video game. I'd like to learn that myself, lol

•          http://www.teachkidshow.com/teach-your-child-how-to-write-and-produce-a-play/

We all love a good laugh. How about having your children write jokes and make their own joke book. They will need to decide what type of jokes to write. It could be about current events, games, your pet, yourself.  Then you can have comedy night at home with family and or friends.
 Here is more information about joke writing.     

•          http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Good-Joke

For those kids who are interested in journalism, a summer newspaper about things happening in the neighborhood would be a great activity. If there are a few children that would like to do this it would work very well.  You might have reporters asking questions of neighbors you can trust. Decide what types of  articles you’d like, they could be about sports, a trip, a movie or tv show, crafts, comics, pets, etc.                 
Check out this link about newspaper writing:

•         http://www.timeforkids.com/homework-helper/a-plus-papers/news-story
•         http://www.layers-of-learning.com/newspaper-article-template/

That’s it for now. These should be enough ideas to get you started. Have a great summer.  

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by Socrates Lantern