Year 2 Writing Activities

By year 2, children in primary schools are on their way to becoming independent writers. Try these writing activities to get their ideas flowing!

1. Make a Magic Potion

For this writing activity, head outside and search for ingredients for a secret potion. Ask your child to look around at what is lying on the ground. Leaves, seeds, nuts, berries, and twigs will all make for a marvelous mixture! When they have collected their ingredients, they can write some instructions explaining how to make their potion while adding water and mixing everything together in a cauldron, or any old container you can find!

You could use the format below or your child could draw and design a magical container of their own!

2. Summer Timeline

Help your child to remember and reflect on all the fun times they have this summer by creating a Summer Timeline. Have your child collect souvenirs from their summer activities, such as tickets, wrist bands, leaflets, photos, maps, anything that reminds them of the different things they do. Challenge your child to collate and stick the souvenirs onto paper. Get them writing by asking them to add dates, descriptions, and memories next to each item. Incorporate phonics by encouraging them to sound out and spell words they use in their descriptions.This could be an ongoing activity that children work on each time they have a new souvenir to add or a larger project at the end of a busy few weeks!

3. Family and Friends’ Biography

Children often don’t think about the adults around them having been young once! Find a willing adult and let your child take on the role of an interviewer. They can use the format below to start their planning and collect the key information for a family or friends’ biography.

Ask your child to think about some further questions they would like to ask and make sure they have written them down before the interview. Make sure there is plenty of space for them to write down the answers they are given. When they have the questions ready, organize a time and let the interview begin!

This template includes some initial questions your child could use for this writing activity:

When designing their own questions, encourage your child to think about the adult’s education, interests, travels, work, and friendships!

If the adult agrees, the interview could be recorded allowing more time for your child to write down the answers afterwards. This is a great way for your child to make progress in writing, while also learning more about an adult in their life.

4. Letter Writing

Everyone likes to receive mail! Get your child to practice their writing and punctuation by surprising someone with a letter, postcard, or email. Encourage them to include the date and greeting. They could share some information about what they have been doing recently and then ask the recipient some questions. Read it over to make sure they are using commas, full stops, and capital letters accurately, and check for correct letter formation.

They could include a drawing with their letter and look at the journey it will make on a map. Hopefully, they will receive a reply! Decorating and personalizing notepaper and envelopes can make this activity even more fun.

5. Travel Guide

Writing about people and places that are familiar is a good way to get children in this age group started with writing if they are struggling to come up with ideas. Ask your child to imagine they are a travel guide for their hometown. Encourage them to think of the top three places they would recommend other children should visit while staying in town. They should write down why they have chosen each place and describe what visitors should expect to see when they go there. They could even have a go at creating a map for visitors that shows the location of their top three attractions! You can create activity sheets to help guide their writing and map-making process if needed.

6. Spaced Out!

Space is a great topic to get a child's creativity flowing! Get your child to think about ideas for their own planet. You could share images and information about known planets to give them some ideas. Inspire their story writing with questions like: “If they could create a planet in space, what would it look like?” “Who would live there?” Start by asking them to draw their planet, or even make a model using papier mache and a balloon, then ask them to write a description of their new world and the creatures that live there.

7. Nature Journal

Why not grab some paper and pencils, and get outdoors?! A nature journal is a way for your learners to develop their writing while making observations about the natural world. Children can complete their journal in any outdoor setting, including the park, woods, beach, backyard, garden, mountains, anywhere they can sit and look around! Here are some writing frames they could use to get started:

• Drawings and descriptions of leaves and flowers
• Sketches of animal tracks: Where do the tracks lead? What animal has made them?
• Descriptions of animal and insect observations
• Poetry they have written about what they have seen
• Recordings of the weather
• Sequencing of events that occurred while they explored
• Adverbs to describe their environment: The wind blows quietly, The ants move slowly.

They could even stick in their journal leaves and petals that have fallen to the floor, smudges of berry juice, and leaf rubbings! Anything they have seen or been inspired by can go in their nature journal.

8. Night Zookeeper

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More writing activities & prompts

• Year 2 Writing Prompts
• Creative Writing Prompts for Kids
• Primary Writing Prompts
• Primary Writing Activities
• Picture Writing Prompts

Related content

• Primary English
• Primary Writing Curriculum
• English Resources