Because Silly Bandz© bracelets come in a variety of shapes, they can serve as the basis for a story, either written or oral or as the prompts for a storytelling game. Teachers, parents and camp counselors can use Silly Bandz© along with these story starter ideas to help children plan ahead with pre writing activities and decide on character, conflict and resolution before writing a story.
Choosing Characters Story Starter Activity for Kids
For this story starter, kids choose two Silly Bandz© bracelets that can be characters in a story – animals, a princess, a girl, a rock star. Adults can find bracelets that represent people or animals and put them in a bowl or bag for kids to choose from.
Another option for this pre writing activity is to use any and all types of Silly Bandz© and allow each kids to choose two bracelets. Next the child chooses a character based on each of the bracelet shapes. For example, if a child chooses a cowboy boot, their story character would either be a cowboy or be someone who wears cowboy boots. Or if the bracelet shape is a drum set, then the story character plays the drums or perhaps the character’s parents are trying to force the character to take drum lessons against his will.
Conflict Card Ideas as a Creative Writing Prompt
The characters determined in the “Choosing Characters” activity may provide a basis for conflict. For example, if a character is being forced to take drum lessons by his parents, the conflict is that the character will take actions to prevent the character from playing the drums.
If a conflict has not been determined based on simply choosing characters, then a child can brainstorm and select a conflict. If the two story characters are a cowboy and a princess, then a child may decide that the conflict is that the cowboy and princess are in love, but the cowboy wants to take the princess out on the ranch where she will get dirty and the princess wants to make sure that she says neat, clean and pretty at all times.
Adults can also write conflict ideas on index cards and allow children to choose a few cards as a creative writing prompt for a conflict for the story. For instance, a child may have chosen a cowboy and a princess as story characters and randomly pick the following three conflict card ideas:
- “Both characters want the same item.”
- “The characters bump into each other and both of them drop the items they were carrying.”
- “The characters are waiting in line next to each other.”
The child can decide which one of the three ideas to use to start his or her story and then move on to pre writing details about the conflict such as where the characters are waiting in line or what interesting items were dropped by the characters.
Conflict Resolution Pre Writing Activity for Kids
Once kids have determined characters and conflict, it’s time for kids to plan how the story will be resolved. Adults can present two characters, the conflict between them and lead kids through a brainstorm for ways that the characters will attempt to resolve the conflict in order to model how to decide on conflict resolution in a story. The brainstorming process serves as a creative writing prompt that kids generate.
- Brainstorm List 1 will be a list of actions that the characters might try that do not work to resolve the conflict.
- Brainstorm List 2 will be a list of actions that the characters might try that will resolve the conflict.
After brainstorming the two lists, the next activity for kids is for each writer to choose two ways that the characters try that will not work and the one way that does finally work. Kids have done plenty of pre writing activities to be able to write a story that has characters, conflict, two failed attempts at conflict resolution and then an action that works to resolve the conflict.
Writing the Silly Bandz© Generated Story
A story can be as short as six sentences or as long as six paragraphs depending on the age level and writing experience of the children. Children can start with six sentences as a base and then stop or develop each sentence into a paragraph.
- Sentence 1: A statement about one character
- Sentence 2: A statement about the other character
- Sentence 3: A statement about the conflict
- Sentence 4: A statement about one failed attempt at conflict resolution
- Sentence 5: A statement about another failed attempt at conflict resolution
- Sentence 6: A statement about an action that resolves the conflict.
A pre writing activity for kids can be especially helpful for choosing characters and conflict for a story. Silly Bandz© can be a great tool as a story starter because of the bracelets’ high interest to children. Adults can add other creative writing prompt elements to help children develop a full story with conflict and resolution.
Kelly Pfeiffer - Kelly Pfeiffer teaches Positive Discipline workshops to parents and trains child care providers on various child development topics.
