A Spin on Squiggle Writing

Raise your hand if you've done Squiggle Writing at some point in your classroom.  If not, then you've got to learn about this "oldie but goodie". It's been a standby, staple lesson in my classroom for years (18 years to be exact). Here's the nitty gritty directions. Basically you draw a random squiggle on paper and let students create an illustration out of it. Then they follow by writing a creatively, cute story.
Now, here's my spin on the traditional Squiggle writing.  Instead of having it be an independent activity, I've made it interactive and called it "Swap the Squiggle". The low down here is students start with their own squiggle for a brief amount of time to begin decorating and on a teacher signal move/swap their squiggle with another classmate. Ideally, you would swap the squiggles several times and then end by returning it to the original squiggle owner. Then the story writing begins! All of my classes have  L-O-V-E-D my "Swap the Squiggle" because it's a team effort and the end illustration ends up being a squiggle surprise. This is another one of those easy "Sub Tub" activities for substitutes too.
For my faithful followers, here are printables for it. I've included squiggle writing paper templates for writing fun

Don't forget my Lakeshore gift card Giveaway.