Not only do Halloween, Christmas and Easter provide a wealth of writing ideas for students, but every month has holidays and special days. Choose a few of these holidays to inspire writing prompts each month. For example, March is National Peanut Month, so students could write about their favorite product that's made from peanuts or write a poem about peanuts. September 5th is Cheese Pizza Day. Have students write about their favorite pizza.
Story starters help students begin short stories. Give students a sentence or beginning of a sentence and ask them to begin a story with it. Stay away from cliches like "It was a dark and stormy night... ." Instead, offer an experiential starter, such as "The pelting rain stung my face like ..." or simply describe a character. For example, "Buddy was the cutest dog at the pet store." Take the first line from a popular children's book. After students have written their stories, share the original story with them and see how many chose a similar angle.
Let children share information about themselves. Create a variety of prompts that give children the opportunity to share about their families, hobbies and favorite things. After a school break, ask students to write about what they did over the summer or during spring break. Another idea is to have students describe themselves to someone who has never met them, including what they look like. Encourage students to include a picture or two to accompany their writing.
Ask students to write about a subject they're studying in class. If students are learning about penguins, have them create an acrostic poem using each letter of the word penguin to include a different adjective about the animal. If students have questions about a unit, encourage them to write a journal entry full of the questions they have. Provide students with an outline of an object related to the unit and encourage them to write about that object inside of the outline.