Trying a different approach to writing

I have often wondered how I could make the writing process for the children more fun and engaging. Often, when children come to write, they struggle with coming up with experiences or ideas that they would like to draw and write.

I have come across this amazing teacher's blog called Number Agents by Leslee Allen, and read her writing sessions with children, Storytelling-A way into writing and Exploring greater depth in writing, and I have really enjoyed reading both of them and it really resonated with my teaching through play philosophy.

The next day in the writing session, I sed Leslee's ideas of storytelling and told the story of a princess. The children were very captured by the story and were really interested. As I drew one picture, I told a story, then another picture along with another story. I talked about how the story had the beginning, middle and end. I gave the children their writing books and talked about where the pictures go. After that, the children were on their own creating their own stories.

After they drew the pictures of their stories, I asked them to come and tell me their stories. It was just amazing to hear so many wonderful creative stories. I really enjoyed this process. For some children, I wrote the story for them, and for others I encouraged them to write the story on the next page. They are familiar with this idea. One of the children naturally just wrote a story before I even asked him to write!
It was great to see some children who are not used to work independently work on their own and tried to work through this. When they brought the book to me, I could very much see their logics of writing.
Leslee talks about the pressure that children feel at a writing session, and I felt that this session worked really well because children were not pressured to do something that they were not able to do. Like she says, children were allowed leave the session if they wanted to, but because there is no resistance to leave, they stayed much longer than I thought they would have.
I like the idea about how this was developmentally appropriate. I know it was and it needs to be, so that I can support the needs of the children appropriately.
Most importantly it was so much fun. In the end of the block after their play, each child shared their story with each other, and this was amazingly wonderful. I loved the focus that children had on listening to their friends' stories.

With our focus this year being writing and using digital technology to support children's writing, I was wondering how I could do this. Can I use the Ipad as a tool to tell a story? or to use it as a tool to give us ideas to write stories? (silent cartoons), Can children use Ipad to take photos and write stories? Something to think about for my inquiry.

I will keep using this storytelling idea for writing, this term and see how it will go. It is also important to think about how I can support children during this process.