This is one of my absolute favorite teaching tools for writing. Kids love being creative and they love to share their creativity with others. These “scribbles” have been circulating for years, but I’ve added a ton of my own to make a big set of 27 scribbles. Here’s how they work:

1. Students turn the scribble at the top of the page into something (you can limit the amount of time if you need to).

2. Students write about what they turned the scribble into. This is your chance to help reinforce paragraph concepts, grammar, spelling, etc. I used to give my students a specific prompt and writing requirements that addressed something in the state or common core (persuasive, informative, etc.). We also used some of these as editing practice.

3. Have students share their writing (under the document camera, go read it to 2 classmates, whatever…). This part is CRUCIAL. It adds so much enthusiasm and energy to the project. When I didn’t let the kids share, they weren’t as excited the next time I passed one of these out. I had a space on one of my bulletin boards for the “Super Scribble” (the one I felt best completed the writing aspect we were focusing on).

4. I’d recommend not making a single book out of these and giving them to the students all at once. If kids see them ahead of time, it kind of kills the project. Some kids might also be tempted to draw on all of them before your class is supposed to do the scribble.

Like I said, this is one of my favorite writing tools. Let me know how it worked in your classroom!

Click here to get the 54 page PDF: Scribble writing- master set with back page of lines

Here are some (PDF) samples one 2nd grade teacher sent me: Scribble 1 and Scribble 2. Her class had fun doing these and the students wanted to send their work to me! So flattered!