An old crow tells the young ones which houses are friendly. Write the lesson.Fact: young American crows usually stay with the family and help rear the next nestlings.
A figure of straw stands in the grain field because of the crows. Write the field from the flock's side.Fact: scarecrows were first put in grain fields because of crows, which also eat insect pests.
It is a young crow's first flying lesson, and the whole family is shouting advice from the next tree. Write it.Fact: after about five weeks in the nest, young crows begin learning to fly.
A crow and a child both want to open the tricky latch on a garden gate. Write the contest.Angle: the child has thumbs. The crow has patience. Who wins, and who cheats?
A crow in a town has watched people for years. Write its list of the clever things humans do, and the one it finds foolish.Angle: doors, umbrellas, bags with handles. Why do they carry food and not eat it?
A straight piece of wire, a crow, and a few minutes later a hook. Write what the crow wanted the hook for.Fact: in one experiment a New Caledonian crow bent straight wire into a hook to lift a small bucket of food.
An older crow teaches a younger crow a trick it worked out for itself. Write the lesson.Angle: the pupil gets it wrong twice, in two different ways. What is the trick?
The crows in a park have learned to turn on the drinking fountain. Write the day the first crow worked it out.Fact: crows in a park in Yokohama, Japan, turn on drinking fountains to drink or to bathe.
Crows play. Write the game a crow invents on a windy day, and the rule it changes when it starts to lose.Fact: American crows have been noted for their play, such as snowboarding on tree bark.
Describe a crow's toolbox: what it makes, what each tool is for and where it keeps the best one.Fact: New Caledonian crows trim twigs into tools and shape hooks from wood and ferns.
Explain why the crow is counted among the most intelligent animals, in a paragraph a doubtful friend would believe.Fact: research in 2002 found that some crows not only use tools but make them.
Here is a puzzle for a crow: a short stick, a long stick shut in a box and food it cannot reach. Write the crow thinking it through.Fact: in one study six of seven New Caledonian crows used the short stick to fetch the long one.
One crumb of bread, a pond full of fish and a hungry crow. Write the crow's choice: eat the crumb now, or use it.Angle: a crumb is one bite. What could a patient crow get with it instead?
Some crows copy sounds they have heard. Write the morning one crow fooled the whole street.Fact: American crows sometimes copy other animals' sounds, barred owls among them.
Someone has left a mirror leaning on a fence, and a crow finds it. Write what the crow does with it.Fact: New Caledonian crows can use a mirror to find things they cannot see directly.
There is a grub deep in a crack in a log, and a crow wants it. Write how the crow gets it, step by step.Fact: a New Caledonian crow pokes a twig at a grub until the grub bites it, then pulls it out.
While one crow hides a treat, a second crow is watching. Write what the first crow does next.Fact: crows can stash food for later seasons.
Write a job advertisement that only a crow could answer.Angle: good with tools, never forgets a face, works in all weather. Singing not required.
The shiny thing 15
A child keeps every gift from a crow in a box with small compartments. Write the label under each one.Angle: the date, the weather and what the crow got in return.
A child leaves peanuts on the back step, and a crow begins leaving small things there. Write the child's report: are they really gifts?Fact: crows seem to thank people by bringing them gifts.
A child's coin rolls through a crack in the porch while a crow looks on. Write how the two of them get it back.Angle: the crow has a beak and an idea. The child has a stick and some gum.
A crow carries one blue bottle cap across town to a particular doorstep. Write the trip, and everything that tempts it to let go.Angle: wind, a rival, a better-looking cap. Why this doorstep?
An earring falls from a crow's beak onto the playground, and the class has to decide what to do with it. Write the meeting.Angle: find the owner, keep it safe, put it back? Somebody wants to write to the crow.
The crow stops coming to the back step for a week. Write the week, and what is waiting there on the eighth morning.Angle: the peanuts pile up. Who keeps checking, and who pretends not to?
Give a museum guide's tour of the Crow Collection: six small objects in a glass case, each brought by the same crow.Angle: the guide tells a grand story for each. The truth is on a small card.
In a short poem, show a shiny thing as a crow sees it from a fence post: a flash, a guess, a decision.Angle: short lines. Is it food, is it danger, is it mine?
List ten gifts a crow might bring, and say where it found each one.Angle: a button, a bead, a washer. One of them is clearly not rubbish.
One day the crow brings something that is not shiny at all. Write why it is the best gift yet.Angle: a feather, a pine cone, a pebble that is only smooth.
People say a crow cannot resist a shiny thing. Write a crow who is tired of hearing it.First line: I like a peanut. I have never once eaten a spoon.
Two crows want the same piece of foil. Write the argument, and what becomes of the foil.Angle: neither can say what it is for. That is not the point.
Write a guide for young crows on how to choose a gift for a human.Angle: humans like round things and things with holes in them. Nobody knows why.
Write a thank-you letter to a crow for a gift you do not understand.First line: Dear crow, thank you for the half of a zipper.
Write the crow's side of a trade: what it thinks one peanut is worth.First line: I brought a bottle cap. I felt this was generous.
A crow remembers 15
An old crow tells the young ones which houses are friendly. Write the lesson.Fact: young American crows usually stay with the family and help rear the next nestlings.
Compose a letter from a crow to the family that moved away, left in the one way a crow can leave a letter.Angle: what does a crow write with? Objects, places, a pattern on the step.
The crow remembers where the garbage truck stops, and on which day. Write the crow's week as a calendar.Angle: Monday the bakery, Thursday the school. What goes wrong on a holiday?
Explain how a crow tells one human face from another, as the crow would explain it.First line: You all look alike at first. Then you notice the eyebrows.
For years a crow has watched one child on its street grow up. Write the morning that child leaves for a new school, as the crow sees it.Angle: a bigger bag, a different bus. What does the crow decide to do about it?
How does a crow know a human face? Write a short report, and add one question you would still ask.Fact: a brain-imaging study found that crows recognize individual human faces.
One person on the street was kind to a crow, and the crow knows that face. Write that person coming home after a long time away.Fact: crows can tell individual humans apart by recognizing their faces.
Someone once chased a crow off a fence, and now every crow on the block scolds that person. Write the walk to the mailbox.Fact: crows remember a dangerous human face and pass the news to other crows in their group.
There is one red umbrella that a crow cannot forgive. Write how the grudge began and how it ends.Angle: three different people have carried it since. The crow does not care.
Two crows disagree about a person: one remembers a kindness, the other a fright. Write their argument.Angle: the person walks underneath with no idea that a trial is going on.
Who moved the garden gnome? Only a crow saw. Write the mystery that its memory solves.Angle: the crow cannot talk. How does it point the family the right way?
Write a crow's list of the people on one street, sorted its own way.Angle: the peanut one, the hose one, the one who waves. Who is on which list, and why?
Write about the day a crow recognized you somewhere you did not expect: across town, at the beach, outside school.First line: It looked at me the way you look at someone from your old street.
Write the apology a person makes to a crow, and how the crow shows it is accepted.Angle: a crow cannot say it is fine. What does this one do?
You put on a hat and sunglasses to fool a crow that knows your face. Write whether it works.Fact: American crows can remember and identify people by their appearance.
A murder of crows 15
A figure of straw stands in the grain field because of the crows. Write the field from the flock's side.Fact: scarecrows were first put in grain fields because of crows, which also eat insect pests.
A group of crows is called a murder. Invent a better name for a group of crows, and defend it.Fact: crows together are called a flock or a murder.
A murder of crows crosses a winter sky. Write the poem, and never use the word black.Fact: crows seldom glide over a few seconds between flaps; ravens soar for long periods.
An older brother or sister crow helps to feed the new chicks. Write one day of helping, from the helper's side.Fact: young crows sometimes stay near their birthplace and help rear younger crows.
Crow or raven? Write a short guide for a friend who calls every big black bird a crow.Fact: ravens are larger than crows, with hoarser cries and pointed wings and tails.
Describe a crow so exactly that nobody could take it for any other black bird: the feathers, the eyes, the walk.Fact: an adult American crow is all black, bill to tail, but for its brown eyes.
The flock of crows has a lookout, a joker, a worrier and a boss. Write one afternoon in the life of the murder.Angle: give each crow one line that could only be its own.
It is a young crow's first flying lesson, and the whole family is shouting advice from the next tree. Write it.Fact: after about five weeks in the nest, young crows begin learning to fly.
On a winter afternoon the crows come in from every direction to the same tall trees. Write the hour before dark.Fact: in winter crows gather toward evening where the trees are big, which is called winter roosting.
On your street lives a family of crows: the parents, last year's young and this year's chicks. Write the family rules.Fact: American crows live in families of up to 15 that stay together for many years.
One crow in the flock spots an owl asleep in a pine. Write what the whole flock does about it.Fact: crows often mob owls with loud calls and dives, to drive them away from their nests.
Picture a winter roost as a town meeting: thousands of crows, one evening and far too many opinions. Write the minutes.Fact: a winter roost can hold from 200 to tens of thousands of crows.
Translate one minute of cawing from the crows in the tree outside your window.Fact: a long caw followed by a string of short ones is usually made as a crow takes off.
Two crows build a nest of sticks high in an oak. Write the building, stick by stick.Fact: both crows of a pair help build the nest, and the female usually lays four or five eggs.
Write the morning a whole roost of crows leaves at once, as someone standing under the trees.Angle: the sky goes dark and loud, then empty. What is the first small sound after?
How it works
These crow writing prompts are about the bird, and they lean on what crows really do: make tools, know one human face from another, leave small things for people. Twenty-nine carry a fact from Wikipedia or National Geographic Kids.
Read the full guide
A clever bird, with the facts
Research in 2002 found that some crows not only use tools but make them, Wikipedia's article on the crow genus says. New Caledonian crows trim twigs and shape hooks, and crows in a park in Yokohama, Japan, turn on the drinking fountains. The puzzle prompts start from findings like these.
A family in the roost
American crows live in families of up to fifteen, Wikipedia's article on the species says, and last year's young usually stay to help rear the new chicks. The last group is written from inside that company: family rules, a flying lesson with too many teachers, a town meeting in the trees.
A crow cannot talk. Let it answer with what it does: a stare, a gift, a caw from the fence.
Questions and answers
What is a good crow writing prompt?
Write a job advertisement that only a crow could answer. Or write a crow's list of the people on one street, sorted its own way: the peanut one, the hose one, the one who waves.
Do crows really remember faces?
Yes. Wikipedia's article on the crow genus says crows can distinguish individual humans by their faces, remember a dangerous one and pass that on to other crows in their group. Fifteen prompts start from that memory.
Do crows bring gifts to people?
Wikipedia's article on the crow genus says crows seem to thank people by bringing them gifts. The shiny thing prompts are stories built on that line. Nothing here claims that crows prefer shiny objects.
What is a group of crows called?
A flock or a murder, Wikipedia's article on the genus says. In winter the groups grow: crows gather toward evening where the trees are big, which National Geographic Kids calls winter roosting.