Creative Writing

My kids both get hung up on creative writing.  I know they have great imaginations but the time it takes for them to write the words gets frustrating for them.  I took a break from it for a while and now we're back to at least 1 per week.  This week my son has 4.
He always asks me how many sentences I expect.  I wrote that he needed 6 earlier this week and his sentences were like, "It was red." Boo!  Today I said, write until I can understand what you mean.  His first completed assignment for today was only 4 sentences, but they were a much higher quality.
Then this afternoon, he drew a picture with his story and both story and picture were pretty good.

Unfortunately the quality of my mobile uploads to Blogger are not as good as the real pictures.  I uploaded one here and also to Facebook and they are definitely of a different quality.  I might have to start taking pictures with my regular camera for this site.
He writes, "This Jeep has just been bought in Africa by John.  John is driving it.  He sees what looks like an intersection.  He will drive into mud.  His engine died when he hit the mud.  'Oh brother!' John said."
He needed to write a story for the picture in Language 3 from A Beka books.  His assignment was to write 4 sentences in the workbook about the picture and then use those sentences and write a little story in his journal.  I am finding that when he is doing something that is so frustrating for him, I can't be too critical, but praise what he did well.

From her A Beka Language 1 book.  Jessie writes: "My Kite"  "My kite will fly high in the sky.  I run into the breaze, (yes, I know it's spelled wrong) and I pull my kite with me.  The tail is long, and the string is long too! The wind is so strong, that the trees are moving!  I like air outside."  Her assignment was to write a story about a kite.  She was to use the words listed in the picture of the kite.