By encouraging your learners’ curiosity and creativity, a whole world of possibilities opens up for them, feeding their ambitions and nurturing their skills. With insight into her own background, Priyanka Handa Ram shares her passion for this learning approach with her three top tips for being playful and having fun while developing creative writing skills.
Priyanka is an education consultant, children’s author, and the founder of Learn to Play, Botswana’s first early childhood social business that creates sustainable cycles of early childhood education. Priyanka is passionate about creating a community of literacy, learning, and happiness through play and early childhood development.
Play is a state of mind
“Play is a state of mind, rather than an activity” – Stuart Brown, 2009
Since I first read this quote, it has stayed with me and influenced the core principles behind all my teaching, curricula and learning approaches. When we bring this philosophy into our classrooms, it transforms our approach. We are no longer aspiring to achieve a particular objective, but instead are cultivating an attitude – a state of mind – in our children.
The importance of creativity
This is particularly applicable in creative writing, especially in the foundation years. The key word here is ‘creative’. Creativity is a skill that is unique to human beings. Experts on the topic will agree that creativity requires ideas, behaviours or products that are both novel and valuable.
If we try to imagine the world 20 years from now, it is unlikely we would foresee all the changes in technology, lifestyle, homes, and communities that are ahead of us. Careers and life skills will require creativity as an essential skill. Creativity is a core foundation to building other capacities that future generations will need to learn and thrive.
Being playful with creative writing
Here are my top three tips for being playful and having fun while developing creative writing skills:
1. Encourage imaginary play to inspire characters and dialogue
Imaginary play is one of the best ways to engage young learners in the classroom. Children love role playing and pretending to be different characters. You can keep this activity open-ended or provide specific scenarios related to your topic or curriculum goals. Make it real by adding props and costumes. This must be more than a gap-filler activity to ensure it has an impact on their creative thinking skills.
Use imaginary play to develop building blocks for creative writing. Learners will use relevant vocabulary, which you can record for them. As they are playing, continue to write down words. Encourage them to write out some dialogue, remembering what they were saying during their pretend play. Ask them to draw a character and label their diagram with details of what the character looks like, sounds like, and their likes and dislikes. Use this inspiration to support learners as they advance towards a writing piece.
2. Notice the environment and let nature spark imagination
Nature is every writer’s playground. Play outside if your environment allows for it. Step back and watch learners wander and wonder. They will find natural elements that will spark their imagination. You can prompt this by asking open-ended questions and helping them notice things in the environment using all their senses. What do you see? Smell? Hear? Feel?
Encourage learners to use these discussions and wonderings to inspire new and unique settings for their stories. When young children can experience things first, they find it much easier to explore their imaginations. With that as their foundation, they find it easier to put the world around them onto the page in front of them.
3. Leverage the power of rhyme
It’s rhyme time! Have you ever noticed how some of the most popular children’s books are told in rhyme? This is often because they are funny and engaging for young learners and therefore are more likely to stick in a learner’s mind. Learners feel more confident because the more they get to know the story, they can begin to predict and complete the next line. Leverage the power of rhyme by playing with words, song lyrics and rhyming sounds. Let children create nonsense words and tell a rhyming story, encouraging them to explore the power of word choice.
Creativity is intelligence having fun
“Creativity is intelligence having fun” – Albert Einstein
We know this to be true because when children are playing creatively, they immerse themselves in the activity they are doing. It is a unique state of being present, almost like a mindfulness or meditative activity.
Many professional writers say the same. Once they are “in the zone”, they cannot think beyond that. When you are playful, you are not worried about making mistakes. You are not trying to create the final draft. You are having fun in the most intelligent way. This, for me, is the power of taking a playful approach to creative writing.
Find videos from Priyanka demonstrating how to apply key teaching skills in practice in our Cambridge Teaching Skills Roadmap.
