What did you write about today?

Cutie Pie had a wonderful teacher for second grade and developed his imagination from the get-go. Mrs. P. had a very structured day in school, so for homework four days a week she assigned journal writing. They weren’t given writing prompts, but rather could write about whatever they wanted, fact, fiction, copied text from cereal boxes…as long as they wrote something in their own handwriting.

The need for creative writing prompts

Hubby and I loved Mrs. P’s flexible homework style, however it was a bit of a challenge for Cutie Pie. After being told all day just what was expected of him it was hard for him to come up with something to write about.

At first he thought about writing a story in his spiral-bound notebook, adding to it every day, but wondered if there would be a day he would want to write something different and then his notebook wouldn’t be consistent. That bothered him, so he came to us for ideas.

How we used writing prompts

Cutie Pie regularly used some great prompts that hubby came up with. Many were funny and along the lines of a 2nd grader’s thought process and humor. They were ideas Cutie Pie liked and could write something new for them each time they came back around in the rotation. Hubby kept a running list of prompts and once Cutie Pie went through the list once, he would start over again or pick and choose from the list.

We would write the prompt at the top of the spiral bound notebook page and Cutie Pie would write to fill up the page, until he ran out of ideas or satisfied the three-sentence-minimum requirement. Sometimes he made lists, other times made up short stories, still other times just wrote a simple description. He often added pictures or a question for either Hubby or I to answer in return, which kept us looking at his writing and kept him reading, too!

The end result

Cutie Pie’s teacher commented at one point towards the end of the year that he was one of the only children to consistently write in his journal and that she could see his imagination coming to life through his words. (She did review the journals to make sure the kids were doing their work and to see how their writing skills were improving rather than just have them write and trust they were doing it.) We believe this manner of writing homework greatly helped in the area of his expressing himself more clearly.

By the end of the year Cutie Pie had an entire notebook full of his own writing on topics he enjoyed writing about. Its a great reflection of the improvement of his writing and captures his changing interests throughout the year as well. (Bonus, remember how I was organizing school papers last year? This is just one notebook to keep for the year to reflect improved writing!)

Second Grade writing prompts For you!

Please feel free to download and use these writing prompts with your child! If you have a younger or older child, consider altering these prompts to fit their age and writing ability!

There is a simple list of prompts, which prints on two pages. I also created a worksheet-printable format (43 pages) in case you wanted to just hit print! I added two boxes at the bottom of the worksheets as Hubby had done in Cutie Pie’s notebook, one labeled “Question for an adult” and one labeled “Draw a picture”.

2nd grade writing prompt Downloads:

Writing Prompts for Second Graders
(list of prompts)
(prints on two pages)

Writing Prompts for Second Graders
(worksheet format)
(prints on 43 pages)