Summer Writing Paper

Giving a young writer somewhere to start

The hardest part of writing at six years old is not forming the letters, it is deciding what to say. This Summer Writing Paper removes that hurdle by handing the child a subject they already own: their own summer. The prompt printed under the title asks for the best summer day they had, which is a memory rather than an invention, so a first grader can begin the first sentence without staring at an empty page. Narrative writing at this grade is about recounting two or more events in the order they happened and adding some detail about what it was like, and a day at the beach or a morning in the garden gives a child plenty of both.

This first grade summer writing prompt is a single printable page. Ten solid rules run the full width of the paper at a thirty-four point spacing, which is the band a first grader needs to write comfortably without squeezing letters or running a tail into the line below. There is a name and date row along the top and a bright band of modelling-clay summer objects along the bottom, so the page looks like something worth filling in. Every response is the child’s own work, so there is nothing on this sheet to mark against.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• 1 summer writing prompt
• 10 full-width writing rules at the first grade spacing
• 1 name and date row

Three reasons this helps kids

First, a prompt about a real memory lowers the cost of starting, and a child who starts writing quickly writes more. Second, the line spacing is set for a first grader rather than shrunk to fit more rules onto the page, so the letters a child makes at this age actually fit between the lines and the handwriting stays readable instead of degrading down the page. Third, the picture at the foot of the sheet is a set of summer objects rather than a finished scene, which keeps it as a cue for the child’s own memory instead of a story someone else has already told.

Ideas for teachers and parents

Talk first and write second: ask the child to tell you their summer day out loud before a pencil touches the page, then ask what happened next until there are three or four events in order. Print the Summer Writing Paper twice so a first draft can be messy and the second copy can be the neat one for the wall or a folder. Ask for one sentence about how the day felt, not just what happened, since that is the detail first grade narrative writing is reaching for. The page also works as a summer journal: run one off each week and let the child date them, and by the end of the holiday there is a small book of their own.

Related Resources

• Butterfly Writing Paper
• Frog Writing Paper
• All About Summer Reading Comprehension Worksheet
• Seasons Song (Animated Music Video)