WRITING IDEAS FOR KIDS
Combine Fact and Fiction to Boost Learning AND Creativity
Sloth Moths Eat What???
I was scrolling through social media one day when I came across an article about a creature called a Sloth Moth. These fascinating insects spend their entire lives living in a sloth’s fur. It’s a good deal. The moths get free room and board (btw, they eat sloth poop. Six year old boys love that little fun fact!) while the sloth gets excellent camouflage from the algae created by the moth. Sloths have an entire ecosystem living in their fur. You can find out more about it in this really interesting article.
Meld Science and Creativity
When I read the article, it immediately sparked an idea about a friendship between a sloth and the moth and the story MOTH & SLOTH: BEST FRIENDS FOREVER was born.
Factional Stories
I love creating fictional stories based on science facts. It’s one of my favorite ways of coming up with book ideas. I’ve dubbed them Factional Stories. (Turns out, I didn’t actually come up with that name, but I haven’t seen it used for picture books.)
You can GO HERE for the free factional e-book and video story, FINDERELLA. It’s based on actual “cleaner fish'' that live on coral reefs.
Sparking Curiosity
Factional stories are a great way to spark curiosity and learning. My hope is that once kids read FINDERELLA and MOTH & SLOTH they’ll be inspired to learn more about sloths and moths, and symbiotic relationships, and cleaner fish, and coral reefs, and…and…and…
Kids Can Write their Own Factional Stories
One of the elements of the MOTH & SLOTH SEVEN-WAY STORY ADVENTURE is our WRITE A STORY 1-2-3 Guide which is designed to encourage kids to write their own friendship stories. For a little extra inspiration, they can try writing a Factional Story based on the creatures in this article https://wildlifewoods.net/blog/2018/8/23/6-surprising-symbiotic-relationships .
I think my favorite story in the article is the relationship between the tarantula and the frog. Oooh…I’m going to go write that story right now!
Let me know if you and your kiddos are inspired to write a factional story Or if you have any favorite factional stories Or if you have any questions!
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