Story Telling

This year I'm trying to focus on writing for Elijah. He has enjoyed creating notebook pages and I have him to write at least one sentence on the pages he has made so far. Once he is comfortable and the sentences are coming more easily I will step that up a little for him. It's a process!

I also want to get Elijah to the point where he can write stories.
I ordered the book Story Starters by Karen Andreola.


I think this is a great book, but Elijah's not there yet. I will have Dakota to use the book because he needs to get faster at thinking up stuff to write for essays and such, so this will be a good writing exercises for him.

While reading in the book I did realize something, both of my boys probably have trouble writing stories because they have trouble making up stuff.

Let me see if I can explain what I mean. I see some kids make stuff up all the time. Not that they are really fibbing, they just make up stories because they have such good imaginations. Good writers need to be able to do that. Because my boys have never made up stories, when they sit down to write they can't think of anything to say. So any moms out there who have kids who make up stuff just to have something to say, it's really a good thing that they can do that. Your child will probably be a great writer.
The book didn't really say all that, but that is what I took from the book.

Since my boys never did the "make up a story thing" when they were younger, I'm having them to do it now. Yes, Dakota thinks I've lost it.

What we are doing is making up stories together. One of us starts and then pauses to let another person add a section and we take turns adding to the story. It's been fun and now Elijah is always asking if we can make up a story. I'm going to start letting Elijah make up stories and I'll write it down as he tells it to me. Gotta work on my short hand to be able to keep up with him.

So what I took from reading Story Starters is that to be able to write a story you need to be able to tell a story. You have to have something to say before you can write!
I wish I had understood that when Dakota was little.