Creative Writing Camp: Write a Chapter Book or Book of Stories

Summer is the perfect time to write a short chapter book or a long story! It's so much fun, and you'll be amazed at how much your child's writing improves when they tap into their imaginations. 

This camp will help any child become a better writer and develop their confidence and skills in every area of writing. They will either write a story or a chapter in a chapter book each day. They can illustrate it outside of the camp time if they like. I'll give them prompts to help them write. We have a lot of fun, and they'll improve their writing. 

They can sign up for more than one week of camp if they want a longer chapter book. Every week is different. 

My style is gentle and kind, and I like to laugh a lot with the kids, and use multi-sensory prompts, which is why they'll bring fun and unique objects to every class. 

Here are the skills we'll work on each day of camp. If we don't work on the skill in the actual class, they will have bonus videos they can watch if they like.

DAY ONE

Day One - The Beginning of any story, book, or chapter: How can you hook the reader? How do you write your beginning so that the reader can't stop reading? How do you describe the setting and characters? How can you add personality to your writing?
Grammar focus - Paragraphs
Game - Scattergories

DAY TWO

Pursuing the Goal and Hitting Obstacles:
What is the main character's goal, and what are the obstacles? 
Writing focus - Descriptions, metaphors and similes.
Grammar focus - Dialogue punctuation
Game - Worst Case Scenario

DAY THREE

OH NO! The Problem Gets Worse: How do you build your story or chapter with tension and excitement? What is the all-is-lost moment in a story or book? What mistakes can your character make? And do they need to make mistakes? (Yes!)
Writing focus - Use specific nouns and strong verbs.
Grammar focus - Verb tense (present/past)
Game - Gimkit

DAY FOUR

Finishing your paragraphs, your story or chapter: How can use beautiful language at the end of a paragraph? How do you add suspense at the end of a chapter? What is a climax? How do you end a book?
Writing focus - Reveals, Beautiful Language - Alliteration, Repetition, Onomatopoeia
Read your beginning - 1 minute!
Game - Favorite class game

STRUCTURE OF THE CLASS

10 min: Brainstorm and talk about the story or chapter beginning. Show your objects!!
5 min: Start or continue your chapter or story with a hook and description. Add your object in the description of the setting or characters.
5 min: Share a line of description in the chat or out loud. (Optional.)
5 min: Kids read parts in a scene and we talk about the skills in the scene from a favorite book like Harry Potter, Wings of Fire, The Magic Treehouse.
10 min: Writing
5 min: Add another skill.
10 min: Writing
5 min: Game TIME!

EVERY WEEK IS DIFFERENT

You can sign up for multiple weeks because every week is different with new examples and new games and focuses. 

COMMUNITY

I love to build a positive community in my classes. We don't have time to read aloud because I give them a lot of writing time, and also, the Zoom environment is not great for reading aloud. However, students can always post stories to the classroom so everyone can read. We say only positive things. Everyone encourages each other!

FEEDBACK

They can send me their writing, and I tell them what I love and give them one thing to improve.