Two elephant calves reach for one branch and their trunks curl opposite ways. Write them finding out they are different.Fact: when grasping, some elephants prefer to twist the trunk to the left and others to the right.
Write an elephant trunk's complaint about being a nose, a hand, a hose and a horn all at once.Angle: it wants one day off. Which job would it give up, and who would do it instead?
Only the tip of her trunk shows above the water as an elephant crosses a deep river. Write what the trunk sees.Fact: an elephant wading deep breathes through its trunk like a snorkel.
A young elephant tests the oldest one's memory with questions about its own babyhood. Write the quiz.Angle: she remembers more than the calf would like. Which answer makes it stop asking?
An elephant looks into a mirror. Write what she understands that most animals would not.Fact: elephants show mirror self-recognition, a sign of self-awareness.
An old elephant leads the way to a water hole she last visited as a calf. Write how she finds it.Fact: elephants possibly keep long-lasting memories of their surroundings on a wide scale.
Every place she has ever found water is kept in one elephant's head. Write the list as she would recite it.Angle: each place has a year, a smell and a story. Give five.
For the first time in her life, an elephant forgets something. Write how the others react.First line: Nobody said anything, which is how I knew they had all noticed.
Going the other way, an elephant comes upon a path she walked once, long ago. Write the moment she knows it.Angle: a rock, a bend, a tree that was smaller then. What tells her?
Is it true that an elephant never forgets? Write an answer that is fair to the saying and to the science.Fact: elephants are popularly thought to have an excellent memory, and that could have a factual basis.
Last year a young bull played a trick on an elephant who forgets nothing. Write the day she pays it back, gently.First line: I had been saving this mud for eleven months.
On the wind an elephant catches the scent of a cousin she has not met in years. Write the hour before they meet.Fact: elephants sometimes hug, trunks twined together, in greeting and affection.
Someone who once helped a young elephant comes back many years later. Write the meeting from the elephant's side.Angle: does she know him at once, or does it come slowly, from a voice or a smell?
They say an elephant never forgets. Write the one thing an old elephant wishes she could.Angle: keep it small: a clumsy fall, a rude remark, a bad melon.
Write a poem in the voice of an elephant in which every line begins I remember.Angle: start with yesterday and go backward. End on the oldest memory she has.
Write the diary of an elephant who remembers everything, on a day when nothing happens.Angle: with a memory like hers, nothing is never nothing. What does today remind her of?
Write the memory an elephant has of you, from a single meeting you have long forgotten.Angle: what detail stuck: the color of a hat, a dropped apple, the sound of a laugh?
Write the same water hole as one elephant sees it at five, at thirty and at sixty-five.Fact: a wild elephant may reach 70 years of age, Wikipedia's elephant article says.
The trunk 15
A tired elephant calf puts its trunk in its mouth at the end of a long day. Write what the herd does next.Fact: for comfort a young elephant will suck its trunk, as a baby does a thumb.
An elephant calf cannot get over a fallen log and the others are moving on. Write what happens, from the calf's side.Fact: elephants use their trunks to lift or nudge a calf over an obstacle.
An elephant calf has not learned to work its trunk yet. Write its week of tripping over its own nose.Fact: a newborn elephant can only flop its trunk around, which may cause it to trip.
An elephant calf tries to drink the grown-up way for the first time. Write the try, and the mess.Fact: an African elephant sucks as much as 2 gallons of water into its trunk, then blows it into its mouth.
First a shower, then a dust bath. Write an elephant's reasons for getting dirty straight after washing.Fact: after a squirt of water, elephants often sprinkle on dust to make a protective layer on the skin.
Only the tip of her trunk shows above the water as an elephant crosses a deep river. Write what the trunk sees.Fact: an elephant wading deep breathes through its trunk like a snorkel.
Trunk raised, an elephant smells rain a long way off. Write what the smell tells her.Fact: an elephant that catches an interesting scent sniffs the air with its trunk raised like a periscope.
Two elephant calves reach for one branch and their trunks curl opposite ways. Write them finding out they are different.Fact: when grasping, some elephants prefer to twist the trunk to the left and others to the right.
Two elephants have a tug of war with one branch and two trunks. Write it as the branch.Angle: the branch has opinions about who is winning and who is cheating.
With the tip of her trunk, an elephant lifts a single berry off the ground. Write it as the berry.Fact: two fingerlike parts on the tip of an African elephant's trunk can pick up one berry.
Write a day in which an elephant's trunk does everything: breakfast, a bath, a greeting, a rescue.Fact: a trunk is the nose and upper lip in one, with no bone in it and little fat.
Write an elephant trunk's complaint about being a nose, a hand, a hose and a horn all at once.Angle: it wants one day off. Which job would it give up, and who would do it instead?
Write an elephant's boast about her trunk, and the one thing she admits it cannot do.Fact: a trunk is powerful enough for heavy lifting and precise enough to crack a peanut shell.
Write the instruction booklet for an elephant's trunk, as if it came in a box.Angle: ten uses, two warnings, and one thing the makers say it must never be used for.
Write the sound of an elephant trumpeting through her trunk, for a reader who has never heard it.Fact: an elephant that feels threatened trumpets loudly through its trunk as a warning.
The herd 15
A calf is born and the whole elephant herd comes close. Write the welcome from the newborn's side.Fact: the herd gathers around a newborn calf, touching and caressing it with their trunks.
A mother elephant keeps her calf close by touch as the herd walks. Write the walk as a series of nudges.Fact: a walking mother touches her calf with trunk or feet, or with her tail if it is behind her.
A young bull elephant, newly on his own, falls in with a group of older males. Write what they teach him first.Fact: male elephants leave their family groups as they grow up and live alone or with other males.
A young female elephant is trusted to mind the herd's newest calf for the first time. Write her afternoon.Fact: in some elephant families others besides the mother look after a calf.
An elephant herd is all aunts, sisters and cousins. Write a family argument and how the grandmother ends it.Fact: female elephants spend their whole lives in tight-knit family groups on the mother's side.
An elephant herd is led by a grandmother. Write a morning when she chooses which way to go and nobody knows why.Fact: the leader of a family of female elephants, usually the oldest cow, is called the matriarch.
The grandmother stops walking and the whole elephant herd stops behind her. Write what she has heard.Fact: elephants can make infrasonic rumbles that carry for many kilometers.
In the night an elephant herd passes a village. Write what a child hears from bed.First line: The ground was talking, very low, and the cups on the shelf were answering.
It is the eldest daughter's first day walking at the front of the elephant herd. Write the day.Fact: when a matriarch's time as leader is over, her eldest daughter takes her place.
One elephant is stuck in the mud and the herd will not leave. Write the rescue.Fact: elephants use their trunks to pull another elephant out of mud.
The smallest calf cannot keep up, and the elephant herd has to decide whether to wait. Write the decision.Fact: a calf presses against its mother's front legs to signal that it wants to rest.
Two elephant families meet at a river and mix for an afternoon. Write the gossip.Fact: elephants live in family groups that come together at times to socialize.
With her eyes shut, the grandmother can name every elephant in the herd by its footsteps. Write her list.Angle: heavy, quick, dragging, skipping. Whose step has changed since last year?
Write an hour of playtime among the calves of an elephant herd, as the grandmother watches it.Fact: elephant calves play differently: females run and chase each other while males play-fight.
Write the elephant herd's midday rest under one tree, as told by the tree.Fact: at midday elephants rest under trees, some dozing on their feet.
A long walk to water 15
After the long walk the whole elephant herd bathes. Write the bath as the noisiest hour of the year.Fact: Asian elephants talk in rumbles, bellows, growls and moans, some heard more than a mile away.
Because the day is too hot, an elephant herd walks through the night. Write the walk by starlight.Fact: elephants see well in dim light, poorly in bright.
The elephant herd arrives and the water hole is nearly dry. Write what the grandmother does next.Angle: she knows another place. How far is it, and does she tell them how far?
The elephant herd smells water before it sees it. Write the last mile.Fact: an elephant may smell four times as well as a bloodhound.
The grandmother elephant takes a turn nobody else would take. Write the walk from the back of the line, where the doubters are.Angle: the doubters grumble for two days. What do they see at the end that stops the grumbling?
In a dry riverbed an elephant digs for water. Write the dig, and who comes to drink afterward.Fact: when elephants dig for water in a drought, they make water holes that other animals can use.
On the walk to water the elephant herd stops for a short night. Write who lies down and who stays awake.Fact: elephants average three to four hours of sleep a day and sleep at night, lying down.
Other animals are already drinking when the elephants reach the river. Write how room is made for a herd.Fact: elephants typically live peacefully alongside other plant-eating animals.
The rains come while the elephants are still walking. Write the first drops on dusty skin.Fact: tough as it is, an elephant's skin is very sensitive and needs mud baths to stay moist.
The water holes have dried up and the elephants set out for a river far away. Write the first morning of the walk.Fact: in northern Botswana elephants travel 325 km to the Chobe River when local water holes dry up.
Write a map of the walk to water as an elephant would make it: by smell, memory and the feel of the ground.Angle: no north, no scale. What marks the halfway point?
Write an elephant calf's first sight of a real river after a life of small water holes.Angle: it has no word for this much water. What does it compare the river to?
Write the elephants' long walk to water as a list of what the herd passes, one thing for each hour.Angle: a bare tree, a termite mound, an empty road. Let the list tell the story.
Write the moment the elephant herd reaches the river, in one long sentence that does not stop until the first one is in.Angle: let the sentence speed up as the herd does. No full stop until the splash.
The youngest elephant calf asks, again, how much farther it is to the water. Write three answers from three elephants.First line: "Past the red hill," said my aunt, who had said that at the last red hill.
How it works
These elephant writing prompts lean on what is known about the animal, and thirty-eight of the sixty carry a fact: a calf that trips over its own trunk, rumbles that travel for miles, a daughter's first day in the lead.
Read the full guide
Does an elephant never forget?
The saying may have something in it. Wikipedia's elephant article says elephants possibly hold long-lasting memories of their surroundings on a wide scale, and may remember where family members are. The fifteen memory prompts take the saying both ways, including the day an elephant forgets.
A herd led by a grandmother
A family of female elephants follows a matriarch, usually its oldest cow. When her time is over, her eldest daughter takes her place. Young males leave to live alone or with other males, so the herd prompts are full of aunts, sisters and calves.
Questions and answers
What is a good elephants writing prompt?
One that gives the trunk something to do. Write an elephant trunk's complaint about being a nose, a hand, a hose and a horn all at once. It wants one day off.
What can an elephant do with its trunk?
Smell, drink, lift, greet and trumpet. National Geographic Kids says an African elephant takes as much as 2 gallons of water up its trunk in one go, and uses the trunk as a snorkel when it wades in deep water.
How long do elephants live?
Wild ones, up to 70 years, Wikipedia's elephant article says. One prompt asks for the same water hole as one elephant sees it at five, at thirty and at sixty-five.
Are these elephant writing prompts for kids?
Yes. They are about family, memory and finding water. No elephant in a prompt performs, carries anyone or is hunted.