Writing Rebus Stories

Need a literacy activity for primary students that is extremely adaptable? My first and second graders enjoy writing rebus stories. After creating one as a group on our Promethean board, all students successfully write them independently.






I start with a collection of images that have obvious connections. I send the screenshots to my students' desktops in a folder.

Students then write a very short story using each image at least once. As they do their word processing, they simply drag the screenshot into the sentence in place of the word. Clip art, line drawings and photographs work for these.

These can also incorporate other skills, such as matching concepts or finding relationships between objects. It is an easy way to encourage storytelling, crafting sentences, spelling and using capitalization and punctuation. Students enjoy rotating to each other's computers to read all the stories.