The Sticker Story was one of my kids’ favorite homeschool writing projects this year, and one of the easiest for me!

(Note: if your kids are already skilled writers and crank out stories left and right, we can jump right to the point: here’s a nifty Peer Review rubric to use in your homeschool, for short story writing! If your kids are still budding writers, and you’re curious about how to teach writing in your homeschool, then the juicy details of this post are for you! Keep reading!)

Because it was one of our easier projects, I thought I would blog about it now–in early May, as the school year is coming to a close. A lot of us in the homeschooling community are chugging along, mayyyybe running on fumes, trying to tie up loose ends as we finish out our school year!

If you want to keep the writing going this month, but don’t have much oomph left, then the Sticker Story is the perfect creative writing project for you. All you need, are some stickers, a rubric, and some creative juices!

Creative Writing in Homeschool

If you’ve been to my blog before, you’ve probably read about Our Creative Writing Experiment this year: how it started (out of my own frustration), and how it’s going (we ended up with 21 different creative writing projects, you guys! TWENTY-ONE!)

While I wasn’t quite quick enough to blog each project in real time, I will be covering all 21 of them in the coming months, complete with links to freebies, songs, YouTube video resources, and products I’ve created for my TPT store.

If if you missed the last blogpost, here is a list of the creative writing projects we have done this year:

• Summer Memory
• Grandparent Interview Essay (#1) (blogpost here, template here)
• Tutorial, or How-To Essay (blogpost here)
• Children’s Story / Sticker Story
• Restaurant Review (#1) (blogpost here, template here)
• Company Letter
• Creative POV
• Grandparent Interview Essay (#2)
• Country Research Essay
• Holiday Sensory Essay (Christmas)
• Persuasive Essay (#1)
• Persuasive Essay (#2)
• Sibling Story (Mentor Text: Diary of a Wimpy Kid)
• Animal Research Essay (template here & here)
• Restaurant Review #2
• Homeschooling Essay
• Famous Person Essay
• Movie Review Essay (blogpost here, template here)
• Compare & Contrast Essay
• Best Book Persuasive Essay
• Summer Bucket List Essay

Creative Writing Project: Sticker Story

Ok, so on to the Sticker Story!

Sticker Story is exactly what it sounds like: a story, with stickers! This creative writing project was actually invented during a week of burnout, for me. My kids had been chugging along, and we had recently done several higher-intensity writing projects, like the Grandparent Interviews and the Summer Memory (Sensory) Essays.

Honestly, I needed a break. They needed a break! Behold: Sticker Story was born!

We had been talking about Story Elements that week; things like: characters, plot, theme, setting, problem, and solution. (I love playing this Story Elements game with them, to review these concepts about any story!) We also talked about having a beginning, middle, and end to our story.

I wanted them to write their own simple story–a story that, say, their preschool-aged little brother would enjoy reading. They each grabbed a sticker from my sticker pile, and started thinking of names for their main character. We focused on alliteration for this story, so they brainstormed names like “Jelly the Jealous Giraffe” and “Stuart the Super-Sneaky Snack Stealer.” Next, I had them think about a problem, solution, and conflict that comes up frequently with kids in real life.

Tips for Teaching Writing

Here are a few ways I set my kids up for success, for this homeschool creative writing project:

• Modeled the desired outcome, by completing a graphic organizer together, first. We used a story we know well, like The Three Little Pigs. This way, it is easy to identify story elements like characters, setting, problem, solution, etc. I went on a quick search on TPT and found this FREE Story Map Graphic Organizer as well as this free version and my kids used both to map their stories!
• Model the desired outcome, by writing a sample story. It took me about 15 minutes to whip up a sample story, that weekend. I had one prepared, so that I could show my kids what I expected, when they were finished. I chose an animal sticker from our assortment, thought of a common conflict that kids face in groups, and wrote my sample sticker story! (That link is for cartoony animals. If you prefer realistic animal stickers, check these out).
• I asked for feedback, and checked for questions. Once I felt like my kids understood the assignment, I showed them this rubric! (Side note: rubrics are hugely helpful for kids and parents. If you are new to teaching writing, I talk about rubrics and other helpful tools in this post).
• We started writing. My school aged-kids are currently in fourth grade, and second grade. I split this project into three days. The first day, we worked on naming characters, brainstorming potential problems & solutions, as well as setting ideas. The second day, we shared our ideas, gave each other feedback, and started writing the main content of our stories. The third day, we fleshed things out into a final draft. (Remember, they are using this rubric, and these Story Map Organizers, to help guide them!)
• One literary element we focused on in this project was alliteration. Alliteration is when you have multiple words that begin with the same letter, in a row. For example: “Minnie Mouse munches mouthwatering muffins!” I thought this could put a fun spin on their stories. I love using the children’s book Stegothesaurus, to teach and reinforce this concept in a fun way. The author does a great job showing both synonyms and alliteration.

As you can see in the first draft above, my son’s alliteration was “Stuart the super sneaky snack stealer!” Since my son used a lot of dialogue in his story, this project also provided a chance to go over quotation marks, commas, and other similar elements. We had to do a few more drafts, after this one!

• While they were writing, we talked about the beginning, middle and end of stories! Once again, we used a common story to solidify this concept, before brainstorming for their own stories. (For example: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is a story they know well. At the beginning of the story, the Pevensie children are familiarizing themselves with their temporary home-a mansion, in the middle of the country-when they stumble upon a magic wardrobe. In the middle of the story, three of the children are traveling through Narnia together to find their brother Edmund, who has gone ahead of them and stumbled into trouble. At the end of the story, the children reunite and their brother is saved by the sacrifice of Aslan, true king of Narnia.)
• I typed up a simple Word document for my kids that said “beginning, middle, and end” with many lines for writing in between. I wanted mine to be a little longer, so they could write more. This was a basic structure for their rough draft. You could also grab this free graphic organizer already done for you- for beginner writers!
• Using the outlines they brainstormed in the graphic organizers (mentioned above), they wrote their stories.
• Once their rough drafts were complete, we started in on a Peer Review Rubric! Before this point, we had never done a rubric, or a peer review, and they loved it! Rubrics are great for setting expectations, and it’s nice for students to be able to glance at those expectations as they work on their project. The peer review part was something I thought of last-minute, and they got a huge kick out of it!

If you want to try out this Peer Review, you can grab it here! I loved seeing the comments my kids left for one another!

Peer Review in Homeschool Writing

Using a peer review for the first time was a sweet surprise. My kids really enjoyed reading and providing feedback for each other! I thought their comments were sweet:

Do you ever try something new in homeschooling, desperately hoping your kids will tolerate it, and your kids end up loving it!? That’s what happened this time! I was shocked. They loved peer reviewing.

If you’d love to try out the sticker story, with a peer review, grab your copy here! I’ll be adding to the project this summer, so stay tuned for more elements. In the meantime, you may enjoy these other homeschool writing projects:

Grandparent Interview for PK-K-1

Grandparent Interview for 2nd-3rd

Grandparent Interview for 4th-5th

Grandparent Interview Extension Ideas

Restaurant Review (whole family!)

Movie Review Template & Movie Review Essay

Happy writing!

Cait