Fall into Fun with 50 Writing Prompts!
Reading Time: 18 minutes Listen to the podcast version:
Unleash Your Child’s Imagination This Fall
Writing prompts are a great way to encourage your child to write.
They can be used for quick writes.
A quick write is an amount of time where the child just writes, whatever comes to mind.
They do not concentrate on grammar, punctuation, or complete sentences.
This helps writing to become non threatening.
I have created 50 writing prompts.
Some of these are very thought provoking and your child may want to write past the 3-7 minute quick write time allocated.
You will need to decide how to handle this.
On the one hand, you may be so delighted that your child actually wants to write, that you are tempted to say, “Yes, just keep writing.”
On the other hand, a quick write is a great way to have your child acclimate to the school day and routine and learn that writing can be fun.
In Home Sweet Homeschool, I talked about creating a daily schedule and having creation time in the afternoons.
I love the idea of creation time.
It is flexible and empowers your child to take their learning where they are interested.
I would reserve that interest in continuing their quick write into a longer story for creation time.
Events
Clean up the world weekend:
Worldwide, we have more trash than we recycle or get rid of effectively.
Create a committee of world leaders and write about their solutions to this problem.
Friday the 13th:
Is this a lucky or unlucky day?
Write a story about a character who believes completely in one way or the other.
Columbus Day:
Write a debate between two friends who respectfully express their differing opinions about Columbus Day.
Election Day:
Sometimes it is hard to get adults to vote during elections.
What would life be like if children could vote?
What would they want to vote for?
Would children vote regularly?
NASCAR:
You are a mechanic for a famous racer in NASCAR.
What is your racer like?
What is it like on game day?
Talk about your day and responsibilities.
Credit Card Anniversary:
Bank of America launched its credit card, the Visa Card in 1958.
This became the dominant payment system worldwide.
Do you think it is a good idea to pay on credit (buy now, pay later)?
Are there problems with this system?
Pearl Harbor:
Go back in time, choose a person to be during the Pearl Harbor attack December 7, 1941.
What is your experience?
Fall:
Imagine you are the designer for a corn maze.
Draw the design for it.
Do you have clues in the maze itself?
What are your objectives?
Create a legend about how and why leaves change colors in the Fall.
Holidays:
Halloween:
If you could become one of the following supernatural creatures for 48 hours, which one would you be and what would your life look like?
Werewolf, Vampire, Witch, or Ghost
How would you prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse?
Create a floor plan drawing and the attractions of the most amazing haunted house ever!
Thanksgiving:
What does your family Thanksgiving look like from the perspective of a family pet?
Identify your pet and talk about the holiday through its eyes.
We often hear of the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and the Natives from the Pilgrims perspective.
Tell it from the Natives’ perspective-what did they think of the newcomers?
What is your favorite Thanksgiving food?
Do you only get to eat it at the holiday? What makes it special?
Christmas:
You recently discovered that there is a university for elves to learn to be Santa’s workshop elves.
Talk about the training they go through and how they are eventually chosen for this special job.
If you could write a letter to Santa for your mom or dad, not for yourself, what would you write?
Santa is getting old and tired, he needs to retire.
What is his retirement plan? Who will he train to take his place?
Plan a neighborhood Gingerbread House competition.
What will the houses be judged on?
What do some of the entries look like?
New Year’s Eve:
If you could go into the past to one day, which day would it be and what would you tell your self or what you do to make a change?
It is the last day of the entire year, what is your happiest memory from this year?
People:
Write a journal entry about Noah questioning one of God’s choices for the animal pairs.
The house next door to you goes up for sale.
You get to determine the next people to move in.
What are your qualifications for you new neighbors?
Pig Pen in the Peanuts cartoon always has a cloud of filth around him.
After you were in an accident where you were knocked in the head, you start seeking clouds around certain people. You realize these clouds are signs of despair and sadness.
Is this a gift or a curse? What do you do?
Who is your favorite famous person?
What makes this person/character so great?
What do you want them to teach you?
What can you teach them?
You have a “Yes Friend.”
This friend will support you, go with you, and try anything with you; you never have to be alone.
You are that friend’s “Yes Friend” as well.
What is this like?
Do you trust each other to not you into trouble?
What have you each tried that you would not have otherwise?
You are a child detective.
You did not mean to start solving all of the neighborhood’s mysteries; it just happened.
Describe how you got started doing this and some of your cases and how you solved them.
Animals:
Create a legend around why penguins cannot fly.
You and your friends discover a baby Raptor and nurse it to health and take care of it, secretly.
It grows up and gets a lot bigger!
What do you do?
Write about the threats to a rainforest-whether natural or manmade.
Now create a team of animals that band together to save their rainforest home.
Who are they, their animal and their names, what do they do?
Imagine you are a dog (or a cat).
What is your name, family like, do you like your life?
Go through a day in your life.
Imagine that animals now are able to be understood and can talk.
We have reached point in politics where many people feel that an animal may be the best option for president.
What kind of animal do you feel embodies the aspects a president should have?
Explain your animal choice.
Squid have teamed up to create a media campaign to not eat calamari.
Who are they advertising to (who is eating the calamari-people, other sea animals?)
What will they encourage to be eaten instead?
Create ads that show their efforts.
Bears typically hibernate for five months a year, every year.
What would happen to our country, economically, if we, as a human race, all hibernated for the same five months?
Do you think this would be a good thing at this time in our lives or a catastrophic one?
Random:
Good manners:
think of something you are supposed to do that is polite.Then say why you this is is silly,
Or, in reverse, why is something bad manners that you think is really not impolite?
How are people identified and put into groups today?
Now change that.
Have everyone identified by hat.
What will different hats look like to identify different kids of people?
What will the groups be?
Have you heard of a tough mudder?
It is a type of challenge and obstacle course-but you get really dirty!
Talk about our family becoming a team in a tough mudder competition.
Write an interview with a first person account of someone (or something or some animal) who was there to know, which actually came first, the chicken or the egg.
Tell that story.
Create a comic strip that educates young readers about the process of honey production: from nectar collection to honey extraction.
Your ticket to go anywhere!
You have a passport that allows you to travel anywhere, to any country.
It states you are a citizen when you get there and you speak the language, like a native.
There is only one condition….(what do you have to do for all of these amazing gifts?)
Choose a wild animal, whether it is land, sea, or air.
You were raised by this animal.
What are your values?
What is your life like?
You wake up on Monday morning to discover it is “Messed-Up Monday.”
Everything you know is out of place, abnormal, or completely different in ways that completely delight you.
Describe your “Messed-Up Monday.”
Can you be respected, but not liked?
Can you be liked, but not respected?
Would you rather be liked or respected?
If you could tell a lie, that everyone would believe, and that you would never get caught for, what would it be?
Why this like in particular?
Create a community that has converted to complete traditional energy independence through solar energy usage.
What does this community’s life look like?
Their jobs, their social life, their cars, the way they do housework, etc.
Write an autobiography about a star, in the sky, that feels insignificant because the other stars shine so much more brightly than it does.
If you were to create a cookbook of the most important recipes and dishes for your family to cook, which ones would it include?
Who would this cookbook be given to?
Exercise on wheels-cast your opinion.
Roller skating, roller blading, skateboarding, or scooters, which one is better and why?
What is your favorite myth, legend, or fairy tale?
Put yourself in it as one of the characters and retell the story.
You are the judge in a cake decorating contest.
Describe the deferent kinds of cakes, the people who entered them, and how you decide upon the winner.
Guardian Angels-do you believe in them?
Talk about them.
If you want to be more creative than introspective, create a school where Guardian Angels are taught how to do “what they do.”
What is that? And how are they trained?
I would love to know which prompt was your child’s favorite?
I enjoy creating these, what type do they like the most, the events, holidays, people, animals, or random?