Draw, Tell and Write: Kindergarten Story Prompts for Early Writers

Good draw and write prompts for Kindergarten give children a picture to react to and one open question, such as “What happens next on the rainy playground?” Each child draws first, tells a partner, then dictates or writes a label or a sentence. Keep the drawing, the spoken words and the writing together, because all three show the child’s story thinking.

By ArtifyTales Team, Nell AI Labs LLC · Published 2026-08-24 · 8 min read

You hold up a picture of a rainy playground and ask what happens next. Half the room shouts at once. One child tells you a long story about a puddle that swallowed a slide, then draws a blue circle and nothing else. Another draws a careful swing set and, when you ask, says “it’s raining.”

Both children have told you something. The question is how to capture it. Good draw and write prompts for Kindergarten are built for that moment. The drawing and the talking come first, and the writing comes last, at whatever level the child has today. In Kindergarten a picture plus an oral explanation already shows story thinking. A paragraph is not the starting point for most of the class.

What a teacher needs

The draw, tell and write routine

Keep the steps in the same order every time. By the third week children know what comes next, and the routine does the classroom management for you.

1. Show the picture and ask one question. “Here is our playground in the rain. What happens next?” Say it twice. Do not model an answer, or you will get twenty copies of yours.
2. Draw. Give about ten minutes. Walk the room and ask “Who is this?” rather than “What is it?” The answer is usually a character, and a character is the start of a story.
3. Tell a partner. Each child tells one thing that happens. The partner’s job is to say back what they heard. This is where a lot of children find their story, and it gives the quiet ones a rehearsal before they talk to you.
4. Write or dictate. Children write what they can: a label, a first sound, a word, or a sentence. For a child who is not writing yet, write their words down exactly as they say them.
5. Read it back. Point to the drawing and read the words aloud. Ask, “Is that what happens?” If it is not, change it.

The last step matters more than it looks. It is the moment a child sees that the marks on the page hold what they said.

Ten open draw and write prompts for Kindergarten

A good prompt has more than one right answer. If the picture already shows the whole story, children copy it. If it leaves a gap, they fill the gap with their own idea.

1. The playground in the rain: what happens next?
2. A door in a tree trunk: who lives inside?
3. A shoe left on the sidewalk: whose is it, and where did they go?
4. A very small dog next to a very big box: what is in the box?
5. A snowman with no hat: what happened to the hat?
6. A boat on a bathtub: where is it sailing?
7. A picnic blanket with one cookie left: who gets it?
8. A child looking up at the night sky: what do they see?
9. A garden with one giant flower: how did it grow so big?
10. An empty classroom chair: who is missing today?

Pick pictures that fit your class. A picture of snow means little in a school where it never snows. Change the details and keep the open question.

A worked example

This one is illustrative, not a real student. A kindergartner draws the playground with a large blue shape across the bottom. When you ask who is in the picture, she points to a small figure on the slide and says, “That’s me. The puddle got so big the slide fell in. Then I swimmed.”

On the writing line she writes an S next to the slide and a P under the blue shape. You write her two sentences under the picture, word for word, “swimmed” included. Then you read them back while she points.

What does that give you? A character, an event, a consequence, and a following action. That is two linked events, which is the heart of Kindergarten narrative writing. It also gives you her letter-sound knowledge on the same page. Neither piece of evidence would show up in a worksheet that asked her to copy “It is raining.”

What to notice when you assess

• Does the telling connect to the drawing? The child should be able to point to the part of the picture they are talking about.
• Is there an event, not just a label? “A slide” is a label. “The slide fell in” is an event.
• Is there a second event? “Then I swimmed” is a sequence. Note it when it appears. Do not demand it on day one.
• What writing did the child attempt? A first sound, a word, a sentence. Record the level. Do not grade it against the others.

Leave drawing skill out of it. A scribble with a clear spoken story is stronger evidence than a careful picture with nothing behind it.

This lines up with the Kindergarten narrative standard, which asks children to use a combination of drawing, dictating and writing to narrate an event. There is more on that in our Kindergarten–Grade 8 Common Core ELA alignment. For a sense of what is typical at this age, see creative activities by child-development stage.

Where ArtifyTales fits

The paper routine above works on its own. Where ArtifyTales can help is afterward, when you want the class to see a favorite story come back to them.

A teacher can photograph a child’s drawing and use the child’s own spoken description of the character and the event. ArtifyTales turns that into an illustrated story you can read aloud, with narration if you want it. Children tend to check it hard. “That’s not how the slide fell in!” is a good sentence to hear, because the child is holding the story to their own version.

Read the generated story yourself before you show it. It can contain mistakes, and it can add details the child never said. Treat it as a draft to compare with the child’s words, not as the finished work. The drawing and the dictation stay the main piece. For a picture of how this looks across the grades, our K–8 math and science story ideas follow the same draw first, check later pattern.

Before you photograph or upload student work

Children’s drawings and voices are personal data, even at five. Before anything leaves the classroom:

• Read how ArtifyTales handles children’s drawings and voices and the page on FERPA and student data.
• Get privacy, retention, deletion and account-management terms in writing before any pilot, and check them against your district’s rules.
• Follow your school’s permission rules for photographing student work. Keep full names off anything you share.
• Keep the account with an adult. Children should not be uploading on their own.

Frequently asked questions

What should a Kindergarten draw and write prompt look like?

It should be one picture and one open question that has more than one good answer. “What happens next?” works better than “Draw the dog in the rain,” because it asks the child to invent an event rather than copy a scene. Keep the wording short enough to say twice.

What if a child cannot write any letters yet?

Then the drawing and the spoken account carry the task, and you or another adult write down the child’s words. Kindergarten narrative writing expects a combination of drawing, dictating and writing, so a child who dictates a clear event has still done the activity.

Does every student need to draw for this activity?

No. Require drawing only when it supports the lesson objective. A child who would rather build the scene with blocks or act it out can still tell the event, and you can save that spoken account instead.

How long does a draw, tell and write session take?

Plan on 25 to 35 minutes: a few minutes to show the picture, about ten to draw, five to tell a partner and ten to write or dictate. Early in the year you can stop after the telling and do the writing the next day.

What should I assess?

Whether the child can tell one event that connects to their picture. Handwriting, spelling and drawing skill are not the target. Save the spoken account with the picture so assessment does not depend only on what the child could write down.

Where does ArtifyTales fit in a Kindergarten lesson?

After the paper work, not instead of it. A teacher can photograph a drawing, add the child’s own spoken description, and turn it into an illustrated story to read back with the class. The teacher reviews the result first, and the original drawing stays the main piece of work.

What should a school check before trying ArtifyTales with a class?

Read how ArtifyTales handles children’s drawings and voices and its FERPA and student-data page. Then ask for privacy, retention, deletion and account terms in writing before any pilot, and follow your school’s rules on photographing student work.

Try one prompt, then talk to us

Run the rainy playground prompt this week and keep the three pieces of evidence together. Then see how ArtifyTales turns a child’s drawing into an animated story you can read back with the class.

For classrooms and learning centers we build custom plans, with shared avatar pools, multi-student accounts and printable activity packs. Request a school or institution pilot and tell us your group size and grade.

The Kindergarten–Grade 8 Common Core ELA alignment covers the literacy side, and FERPA and student data covers what a district review will ask.