Learn about the benefits of monthly writing prompts for kids. This article gives examples for each month as well as a free writing calendar.
Is shadow work dangerous? What are examples of shadow work? In this article I will go over what is shadow work and how to use it for healing.
Get these deep Shadow Work Journal Prompts for healing to kick-start your journaling journey of discovery and growth.
This resource has been a game changer for my classroom! I will never go back to regular morning work. Students have the same routine every day, but it never
10 Creative Art Activities for Kids, including free printable drawing prompts and art collages, plus many more creative art ideas!
Ring in the new year with these January Writing Prompts! Fun, educational, and imagination building ideas for Opinion, Narrative, and Informative writing.
Download our free printable My House drawing prompt and have fun creating a cool little house!
Finding easy morning work solutions is harder than it seems. Chances are, you are no stranger to last-minute trips to the copier (which may or may not be
Learn what shadow work is and why it's so crucial. You'll also find 7 powerful shadow work exercises with journal prompts included.
Give your kids some drawing inspiration with our Free Printable Scenery Drawing Prompts! Choose from an assortment of scenes to get the creativity flowing!
I absolutely LOVE interactive journals!!! I am still working on other subject areas, but for now I use them in Math and Science. Here are some sample pages from my September Math Journal Prompts in action: I have always taught thematically, so the main themes in the September pack are Apples and Farm. However, about half of them are general prompts (like the dice, ten frame and putting numbers in order). All of these are based off standards taught early in the year for K students. If you're interested in using interactive math journals and don't know where to start.. these are perfect! Each prompt has pictures for your kiddos to work the problem out. This helps little learners to solve the problem without getting distracted from drawing out pictures, etc.. It also offers a quick assessment for the teacher. Check them out here!
How many times have you tried creative writing with your child or student, but wound up looking for where they were hiding? It's not because they hate learning, and it definitely isn't because your kid is dull. Sometimes, kids just need a little incentive. No, we’re not talking about candies and ice cream. They’ll lik
Inspire your second writers with this list of journal ideas and 2nd grade writing prompts shared by one of our Journal Buddies readers!
Teaching Resource: A getting to know you activity to do at the beginning of a new school year.
When teaching narrative writing in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade, there are so many writing skills to cover. They range from creating a sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end) to more difficult
1. Attach an image (photo, magazine, etc.) to a notebook page and write about it. 2. What things will people in the future say about how we live now? (Examples: They ate that? They believed that?) 3. Pick one from each list to make a creature and animal combination. Now write a short story or scene in which this creature appears. List 1 List 2 Vampire porcupine Ninja armadillo Zombie pig Pirate goat Mummy lobster Clown possum Banshee shark Wraith moray eel 4. Imagine a future in which we each have a personalized robot servant. What would yours be like? What would it do? What features would it have? 5. What does your name mean? Free write about names: names you like, names you don’t, how a name can affect a person’s life, how you feel about your own name, why your parents chose your name, etc. 6. Create a brand new holiday with its own traditions, rituals, foods, and activities. 7. What road-trip would you take if you suddenly could? Write about it. 8. List six true sentences that begin with the words “I'll never forget…” 9. Imagine that we lost all electricity, water, and gas for a month without any time to prepare. Write about how your life would change and how you would survive. 10. Make your bucket list for the next 5 years, the next 10 years, and for life. 11. Tell this story: “Well, I thought it was going to be a regular summer doing all our regular things…” 12. List 10 places in the world that you would most like to visit, 10 places you’ve been, and 10 places you would never want to go. 13. Think about hospitality in your family. What’s it like to have guests in your house? Do you prefer to have friends to your house or to go to a friend’s house? 14. Pick a family member of two and write about his or her reputation in your family, or tell a family legend. 15. A guitar pick, a red balloon, and a wicker basket. Write a scene or a poem that includes these three objects. 16. What animal would judge us the most? Write a scene (based on truth or fiction) where two or more people are doing something silly, and they're being observed and criticized by animals. 17. Write about your own worst family vacation memory. 18. Write about your best family vacation memory. 19. Imagine that someone says to you, “Because that's how we've always done it!” Write this out as a scene. (Think: Who said it, what were the circumstances, how did you respond, etc.) 20. What do you think about when you can't sleep? Turn it into a piece of writing. 21. What traditions does your family have? List all of them or just pick one and write about it. 22. Think about your strongest emotion right now (irritation, boredom, happiness, contentment, etc.) and find five quotes about this emotion. 23. What do you struggle with the most? Write about it. 24. Write a self-portrait. 25. What can we learn from contrast? Write a description of something very dark (like a crow) in a very light place (like a field of snow). Make the dark thing seem innocent and the light thing seem ominous. 26. Write about someone who has no enemies. Is it even possible? 27. Think of a person from your past who really deserved a good scolding but never got one. Write a fictional piece where you tell that person off intelligently. 28. Can honesty honestly be bad? Write about someone, fact or fiction, who gets in trouble for being too truthful. 29. The word “fat” carries a negative connotation. Write a story or observation where something fat is celebrated. 30. What animal lives beneath your human skin? A mouse? A cougar? Or what? Explain with writing. 31. Write about the best piece of advice you ever received. 32. Remember a favorite book from your childhood. Write a scene that includes you and an old copy of that book you find somewhere. --> 33. “I was so mortified, I wanted to crawl in a hole!” Write a short narrative (fiction or nonfiction) where this is your first sentence. Illustrate it if you want. 34. Should books ever be banned? Discuss. If no, explain why. You might want to look at a least of commonly banned books. If yes, explain under what circumstances. 35. Ernest Hemingway said to “write hard and clear about what hurts.” Write about something that hurts, whether it’s an emotional, physical, or phantom pain. 36. What if everyone had to wear a shirt with his or her Myers-Briggs personality type on it? What would this change? How would this affect the way people interact with each other? Would you like this or hate it? (If you don’t know your “type,” try this site. 37. William Shakespeare wrote that: “Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” Write your thoughts about conversation, or make up dialogue between two characters who are meeting each other for the first time in an unexpected place. 38. Tell this story: “There it was, finally. Our island. Our very own island. It looked beautiful above the waves of fog, but there was still one question to be answered: why had they sold it to us for only five dollars?” 39. Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way s/he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” Tell a story in which a character has to deal with one, two, or all three of these scenarios. How does your character respond? 40. You have a chance to go back and completely re-do an event in your life. What is it, and how to you change it? What is the outcome? This can be a real or fictional event. 41. Pick two characters from different books you’ve read this year and have them get in an argument about something (e.g., who has suffered more, who has had a happier life, etc.). 42. The one shoe in the road: why is it there? Write a story about the circumstances that led to one shoe in the middle of the road. 43. You get to guest star on a TV show. What show is it? What happens in this particular episode? 44. What would you pack in your suitcase if you could not go home again? 45. You can only use 20 words for the rest of your life. You can repeat them as often as you wish, but you can only use these words. What are they? 46. What current fashion in clothing do you particularly like or dislike? Why? 47. Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Why did you choose these things? 48. "When I stepped outside, the whole world smelled like…" Write a scene that starts with that line. 49. Write a poem entitled "Hitchhiking on a Saturday Afternoon." 50. Use these two lines of dialogue in a story: "What's in your hand?" "It's mine. I found it." 51. Write a scene that happens in a parking lot between a teenager and a man in a convertible. 52. If you only had one window to look out of for the next six months, what would you want to see on the other side? Describe the view. How would it change? 53. Write a story for children. Start with “Once upon a time” or “Long ago in a land far away.” Include a dragon, a deadly flower, and a mask. 54. "Did she actually just say that?" Write a scene that includes this line. 55. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard. Write what comes to mind when you read this quote. 56. List five things you want in a relationship. 57. List ten favorite lines from movies. 58. Write about the biggest mistake you made this week. Now write about the best thing you did this week. 59. What is the very first memory that you have? Write about it. 60. What if your pet could only talk to you at midnight for an hour? 61. Write an acrostic poem using your full name and three words that describe you—good and bad— for each letter. For example, S: sensitive, stubborn, smiling. A: artistic, argumentative, agoraphobic M: melodramatic, moody, magical 62. What if you could create your own TV show with all your friends and loved ones as the cast? What kind of show would it be and who would play which parts? 63. Take a photo or draw a picture of every place you go in a day. Put the pictures or drawings in your journal. 64. A to Z: Make an alphabetical list of advice for someone who is about to become a teenager. For example: A: ask forgiveness, not permission. B.: bake cookies. C.: cook something delicious once a month. D: don't compare yourself to others. 65. Find 10 quotes about happiness. 66. Write about 5 things you'd rather be doing right now. 67. Write out the lyrics to your favorite song. Find some pictures to illustrate the song. 68. Who do you spend the most time talking to? Siblings, parents, friends? Make a list of who you actually talk to during the day and estimate the amount of time invested in each individual. Does the list reveal your priorities? Is it proportional to what is important to you? Make notes of what you talk about in your daily conversations. 69. Find a quote for each month of the year. 70. Animals can sometimes seem remarkably human. Describe an experience with an animal that acted in a very human way. 71. Imagine you opted to have yourself frozen for 50 years. Describe your first days unfrozen, 50 years in the future. 72. Imagine that you are an astronaut who has been doing research on the moon for three years. You are do to go back to earth in a week when nuclear war breaks out on earth. You watch the earth explode. Then what? 73. Create a menu from a fictitious restaurant. Make sure the restaurant has a theme, such as Classic Books, and the food should all be given appropriate names (e.g., “Mockingbird Pie”). 74. Preconceived notions are often false. Describe a time when you discovered that a preconceived notion of yours (about a person, place, or thing) turned out to be wrong. 75. Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as: “The last time I saw her, she...” “From the back of the truck...” “On the night of the full moon...” “The one thing I know for sure…” 76. Describe a significant person (teacher, neighbor, mentor, coach, parent, sibling, sweetheart) with as many physical details as possible and as many similes as possible. (E.g., “Her hair was as golden as straw.”) 77. Write about your first name—why you were given it, what associations or stories are attached to it, what you think or know it means. Do the same for your last name. What name would you give yourself other than the one you actually have? 78. Parents are our first and most important teachers. Describe a valuable lesson you learned from one of your parents. 79. Imagine a moral dilemma (for example, you see someone shoplift or a friend tells a blatant lie to her parents about where she was last night) and explain what you would do and why you would do it. 80. Review an obituary, birth, or a section from the police record or classified ads section of a local newspaper. Choose one and tell the story behind it. 81. List the most attractive things about your current hometown. Now list the most unattractive things. 82. Come up with a list of nouns and a second list of verbs, all of one syllable each. Describe a scene or situation, using a minimum of ten words from each list. 83. Where is your happy place? Write about it and include a picture or drawing. 84. Create a how-to manual for something you can do well (make a craft, bake cookies, restring a guitar, apply make up, etc.). Describe the process so that someone else could complete the task based on your directions. Use present tense verbs. 85. Free write on this quote by Samuel Johnson: “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal.” 86. Find a favorite quote and work it into an illustration. (Inspiration here.) 87. Make a soundtrack for your life so far. List songs that describe you or different times of your life. (Make the actual soundtrack on Spotify, etc. too!) 88. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that force us to face our deepest fears. Tell about a time when you had to face one of your greatest fears—or make up the story. 89. You’re a talk show host. Pick two guests. Why did you choose them? Are they people who get along, or people with vastly different viewpoints? Write about the episode. 90. What three books do you think should be required reading for everyone? Why? 91. “What you don’t know what hurt you.” Write a story that begins with this statement. 92. Free write on this quote by Woodrow Wilson: “Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.” 93. According to a Czechoslovakian proverb, “Better a lie that soothes than a truth that hurts.” Agree or disagree? Explain. 94. Rewrite “The Tale of the Three Little Pigs” by using people that you know as the pigs and the wolf. 95. There is a saying that you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Describe a time when you wished for something and got it—and then wished you hadn’t—or make up a story in which this happens to the character. 96. As the saying goes, “rules are meant to be broken.” Tell about a time when you broke the rules and what happened as a result. 97. "That's not what I meant!" Write a story that has this line in it somewhere. 98. A blue trash can, a red picture frame, a teddy bear with the stuffing falling out, and a padlock. Put these four items somewhere in a story, scene, or poem. 99. Write your name in outline letters on a whole sheet of paper. Now fill in each letter with words you like that begin with that letter. For example: 100. Make a word collage of who YOU are. Use pictures too, if desired. **HURRAH! You can now purchase this as a digital PDF ($2) at Teachers Pay Teachers. For more creative writing ideas, check out my free WordSmithery creative writing lessons and my popular Ultimate Guide to Creative Writing Resources! Check out 100 other 100 Things posts from the bloggers at iHomeschool Network! Do you have it yet? The Big Book of Homeschooling Ideas—a collaboration of over 50 authors with 103 chapters— is now available! Don't miss this amazing resource!
I’ve been spending some serious amounts of time this summer leading conversations around the country focused on the integration of social studies and literacy. And for the last few years, I…
This past week, we started a new personal narrative writing unit all about my many memorable firsts. I began this unit with a hook to engage student interest--we talked about roller coasters. Who doesn't have a love-hate relationship with a good ol' roller coaster? Especially in a room of second graders, the feelings are unanimous. "Roller coasters are SO MUCH FUN!" We talked about what it was like to go on a roller coaster for the very first time--how that wait in line feels like forever; how when you get into the cart and put on the seatbelt, your heart starts to race; how as the coaster slowly goes clickit-clackity up the tracks, you are thinking "We are going up so high!" and your heart is beating out of your chest; how at the very top it feels like the world stops for just a moment, and then woosh!; how you scream at the top of your lungs as you zoom down the track and loop upside down. I shared my personal story of the first time I went on the roller coaster The Mantis at Cedar Point, and my students were all in. They couldn't wait to start brainstorming! I modeled how to come up with some ideas to get my students on the right track (no pun intended), and put some common experiences down, like the first time I lost a tooth or the first time I rode a bike, to prevent students from getting "stuck" in a writer's block. Students had to come up with at least 3-5 ideas, but many of my students came up with many more. We did lots of sharing out, and then we each circled one idea on our web that we would write about. The next day, it was time to start some serious planning. I created a pre-writing organizer that would not only engage key information like the "who," the "where," and the "when" but also would engage sensory details right from the get-go. We spent the most time on the "Things on the Outside" section as we went through the five senses. What did I see? Hear? Smell? Feel? Taste? I chose to use the idea of the first time I swam underwater, so I wrote down things like I saw the blue water of the pool, I heard my mom cheering for me, I felt the blazing sun, I smelled chlorine and sunscreen, I tasted salty sweat on my lips as it dripped down my face. Then, it was time for our sequencing organizer to get the meat of our story told using temporal words. I can't wait until we are to the revising/editing portion and can dig into these checklists! If you are interested in this "My Many Memorable Firsts" common core aligned personal narrative writing unit, I just uploaded it to TPT. Just click the picture below! Also, get the "Peer Editing Checklist" as a FREEBIE! :) Click the picture below!
Awesome Spring Writing Prompts for First Grade. Narrative, Informative, and Opinion Writing organizers and draft pages included in fun spring themes.
Make the most of your writing block with these funny picture prompts! Go here:
Try these 100 Prompts for Teachers to Ask ChatGPT. Using ChatGPT effectively can not only save you time, but help you to innovate teaching.
Your student will develop her creativity and writing skills with this fun writing prompt.
Use these 10 anti-bullying activity journal prompts with your students to help them work through their difficult experiences with bullying.
Children wonder, "What is Labor Day?" Teach the history and purpose of the holiday with these Labor Day books for kids. They're perfect for..
End of the Year Writing Prompts to help in those last few crazy weeks of school. Great for reflection, memories and a bit of fun.
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
Prompt versus cue - Have you ever wondered the difference? Prompting and cueing are critical components of teaching new skills.
Mrs. Tuckers Kindergarten class does an activity called, Journals, every morning.Students are given a sentence prompt that they copy from the board. At the start of the year, the teacher will
Photographing teens and older kids can be tough! Here are five favorite prompts for families with older kids to get you going!
Writing stories together can be a great exercise for little ones to develop storytelling, literacy and writing skills. Connect storytelling and yoga by asking kids to write stories about their favorite yoga poses. Use our Mountain Pose template to help kids develop proper story structure!
These mindfulness journal prompts helps kids learn the practice while reflecting on their experiences and thoughts. Let's explore today!
This three paragraph graphic organizer can be used by students to plan an essay. Each box has lines for sentence and prompts for the types of sentences that should be included in their essay. I have found that providing a lot of structure while students are learning the three paragraph format real...
