Summertime is meant for spending time with family and friends.  It’s also a great time to practice all of the reading and writing skills gained during the school year.  Here are some fun activities designed to help you do both!

These can be done at home or on vacation.  If some members of your family are too young to write, have an older family member transcribe for them.  These activities are meant to explore and exercise the imagination, not to teach grammar and spelling skills.  Good thinking always comes first in good writing.

Have fun, and remember:  the family that writes together produces better writers.

This game works with two or more players.  Without talking, sharing, or peeking, half of the writers write down 5 questions and half of the writers write down 5 answers.  These can be silly or serious, but try to catch whatever ideas pop into your head.  Next, cut the questions and answers into separate strips of paper so you can move them around.  Now pair up the questions and answers so that they make sense.  For example,

Q:  Why do we have TV?
A:  Because computers don’t want us to know how smart they are.

This activity develops critical thinking skills as you stretch to find new connections between the questions and answers.  You can also do this with half of the group writing “If” statements and the other half writing “Then” statements.

First go through old magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and junk mail, and cut out interesting words and phrases.  When you have plenty of words to work with, give everyone a sheet of paper and some glue.  Now combine the words to make up poems, and be sure to read them aloud to each other.

Using index cards or slips of paper, write down a variety of characters (for example, Goldilocks, a basketball star, a panda bear named Sol, etc.) and a variety of actions (for example, won the lottery, took swimming lessons, fell down and broke his crown, etc.).  Make sure you have at least two characters or two actions per writer.  Now mix them up and have each writer choose two from each stack.  Set a timer for 15 minutes, and ask each writer to write a short story that includes the two characters and the two actions.  Then read these aloud, and see if you can guess whic characters and actions were drawn from the stacks.  (Hint:  add several characters and actions to make it harder for your listeners to guess.)

Set out a notebook or legal pad and some pens in a spot where everyone in the family can use them.  At the top of the first page, write a question such as “Where should we go on our summer vacation?” or “If you could plan a special family meal, what would it be?”  Encourage family members to take a few minutes to read and write in the family journal everyday.  This can also be a good way of discussing and working out family problems, especially when family members are on different schedules and don’t always get to talk face-to-face.
 

Get a large piece of poster board and a variety of crayons or markers.  Ask everyone in the family to write down and illustrate the things they would like to do during summer vacation.  These can be big things (take a trip to Hawaii) and small things (eat an ice cream cone).  Now hang up your poster to remind you of fun activities in case you get bored during vacation.

Hire everyone in your family as a news reporter.  Read a few newspaper articles to get a feel for the way journalists write.  Ask each family reporter to write short articles about events that have happened recently in your family, such as a new baby, a special award, or a case of chicken pox.  Include illustrations and photographs, too.  Give your newspaper a name, and write or type all of the articles neatly.  Now you can xerox your newsletter and send it to family and friends who like to hear about what’s going on at your house.

Write down your phone number.  Now use this as a formula for writing a poem.  Each line of your poem contains the same number of words as one digit of your phone number.  For example, if your number is 123-4567, then your first line will have one word, your second line will have two words, your third line will have three words, and so on.

We all know plenty of old proverbs, such as “A stitch in time saves nine.”  This activity lets you make up some fresh proverbs of your own.  Make a list of the first half of familiar proverbs.  For example:

Early to bed, early to rise . . .
A penny saved . . .
The squeaky wheel . . .
Better to have loved and lost . . .
Too many cooks . . .
Better safe . . .
Waste not . . .
Absence makes . . .

Each writer is given a list and asked to complete the proverb by inventing the second half of it.  Children are especially good at this since they might not have heard the old cliché version of a proverb.  Encourage everyone to use a lot of imagination.

After you’ve done the proverb activity, ask each writer to select a favorite proverb from the list and then write a fable to go with the proverb.  A fable is a story with animal characters that behave in human ways, and every fable has a moral or a lesson.  Be sure to read the fables aloud so everyone can enjoy them.

Once you’ve tried this, take fables to the next level.  Ask everyone to invent an important moral or lesson and then write a fable to go with it.  Children tend to write about issues that they are currently dealing with, such as tattling or sharing.  This is a great way for them to explore the lessons they are trying to learn.

Most of us have boxes and boxes of photos we plan to organize and label one of these days.  What better time than now?  Ask family members to help fill in the important details on the back of each photo, and try to add a little of the story behind each photo.  Take time to tell the stories of the photos that children have not seen before or events that took place before the children were born.

If you are lucky enough to have a family photo so old that no one remembers who the people are or what is happening in the photo, use this to inspire family members to make up their own versions of the history of the photo.  The taller the tale, the better and more fun.  Read these stories aloud.

Prepared April, 1999 by Linda Evans, English Department, Mesa Community College, as part of a sabbatical project funded by the Maricopa County Community College District.  Please send comments, suggestions, and ideas to Linda Evans, Mesa Community College, 1833 W. Southern Ave., Mesa, AZ, 85202 or to levans@mail.mc.maricopa.edu

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