10 I Love to Write Day Activities for K-2 (and a Book to Finish by Winter Break)
I Love to Write Day falls on November 15. In a K-2 room, “writing” mostly means drawing, talking and a few brave words, and that’s exactly right. Here are ten activities that celebrate the day, plus a simple plan to turn it into a picture book every student finishes before winter break.
Young children tell stories long before they can spell them. The Common Core kindergarten standard says so directly: students use “a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing” to narrate events (W.K.3), and the 1st and 2nd grade narrative standards (W.1.3, W.2.3) build on it. So every idea below treats a drawing as a real piece of writing, and the words as something that can come later, from the child’s mouth or their pencil.
1. Draw the story before you tell it
Give each student a story planner with three big boxes: beginning, problem, ending. Ask them to draw in each box first. Who is in the story, and where are they? What goes wrong, or what do they want? How does it work out? A five-year-old who can’t yet write a sentence can still fill three boxes with a cat, a broken rocket and a happy landing. That’s a plot.
2. Start an author’s chair
Pick a special chair, give it a sign, and let one student a day sit in it to share something they made. On I Love to Write Day, open the chair with your own story, drawn badly on purpose. Kids relax when the grown-up’s drawing is worse than theirs.
3. Label everything
After drawing a picture, students add labels: “cat,” “moon,” “me.” Kindergartners can sound out a first letter; 2nd graders can write a phrase. Labels are a gentle bridge from pictures to words, and they become the first draft of a caption.
4. Interview a character
Each student draws one character on a sticky note. A partner asks three questions: What’s your name? What do you love? What are you scared of? The answers are the start of a story, and saying them out loud is rehearsal for writing them down.
5. Pass the picture
Students draw the first scene of a story, then swap with a partner, who draws what happens next. Swap back and talk about it. It’s a fast, funny way to show that every story has a “next,” and that authors make choices.
6. Read a wordless picture book
Choose a picture book with no words and read it together by telling what you see on each page. Then ask: if you were the author, what would this page say? Write a few of their sentences on chart paper. Students see that pictures carry the story, and that words can be added to pictures, not the other way around.
7. Write a dedication
Real books start with a dedication: “For Grandma, who likes cats.” Ask each student who they would dedicate a book to and why. It’s one sentence, it’s personal, and it gives them a reason to want to finish the book.
8. Share the pen
Write a class story together. You hold the marker for most of it and hand it to students for the words and sounds they know. A class story about the class pet, the playground or a made-up dragon models how a story moves from beginning to end.
9. Make a mini-book
Fold a sheet of paper into a small booklet and let each student make a four-page book in one sitting: cover, beginning, middle, end. It won’t be polished. It will be theirs, and finishing something on day one is a great feeling.
10. Make a publishing promise
End the day by promising the class something bigger: every student will finish their own picture book, with a cover and their name on it, before winter break. Then hold yourself to it, with the plan below.
A picture book by winter break: a five-week plan
From mid-November to the week before break is about five school weeks. Two or three short sessions a week are enough.
| Week | What students do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Plan the story on the story planner: beginning, problem, ending, in drawings. Choose a title. |
| 2 | Draw the first pages on drawing sheets, one drawing per page. Two or three pages a session. |
| 3 | Finish drawing, 8 pages or more. Fast finishers add a cover drawing. |
| 4 | Add words to each page. Kindergartners dictate to you, a helper or a buddy; older students write and check with a partner (W.K.5, W.1.5, W.2.5). |
| 5 | Put the book together and hold a publishing party: author’s chair, certificates, and visitors if you can. |
A few things make the plan easier:
- Use one shape of page. Half-letter pages (5.5 by 8.5 inches, half a sheet of printer paper) are big enough to draw on and small enough to finish. Our free drawing sheets put two on a page.
- Keep a folder per student. Pages get lost. A folder with the student’s name on it holds the planner and every page.
- Let the words be theirs. Invented spelling is fine in a first book. If you want to help, write the conventional spelling lightly underneath, and let the child decide.
- Plan for absences. Eight pages is a complete book. Students who miss a week can still finish.
Turning the pages into a real book
The paper booklet is a finished book on its own: cut or fold the sheets, staple them, and it goes home in the folder. If families want a printed hardcover, they can scan the pages at home with the I Wrote That Book app, check the words with their child and order it, so you never handle student data. Class codes can bring the price down for every family.
Whatever you choose, the celebration matters more than the binding. A child who reads their own book from the author’s chair, to a room that listens, remembers it.
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