Rebus Writing

Anyone else remember reading rebus stories as a kid? Or what about writing them??

Rebus Examples

I remember loving the challenge of figuring out the story within the interesting puzzle-like way that a rebus is written. 

Here is a quick idea to get your students excited to write as well as using the opportunity to teach nouns and verbs in a visual way. 

Rebus writing is a mixture of words and little picture icons. The pictures take the place of some of the nouns and verbs in the story. The challenge of reading a rebus is exciting for kids to figure out and definitely works on comprehension skills! 

Introduce this mini project by reading an example of a rebus story to students, stopping at the pictures to have them name the noun/verb throughout the story. Next, they are given the winter themed grid sheet of mini illustrations to use as they write their story. There are a few empty boxes for them to create their own noun and verb icons too.

They write a draft in their notebook first. Whenever they get to an illustrated word, they write the word and draw a box around it so they remember to actually cut and use the picture when they come to it in their final copy. 

Every other line is skipped on the tablet paper to allow enough room for the icons.

Students complete their good copy on a large tablet sheet of paper using marker. If a mistake is made, they simply cut a piece of white paper and glue it over the mistake and they're ready to keep going. #OldSchoolWhiteOut

A simple scoring guide is used to assess final projects. This is shown to students prior to beginning their writing.

When the project is completed, students are excited to read their story to the class. If there is a place to hang them in the hallway, the rebus-writing authors love to see students in other grades stop and read their stories! Thus giving others a chance to read authentic student writing and providing a way for the 4th grade authors to take pride in what they accomplished.