• 61 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Purim Writing Prompts

A messenger's side of the story, who is under the costume, a basket for next door, noise at one name.

Purim Writing Prompts

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  1. Write the Purim feast as the youngest person at the table, who has been waiting for it all day.Angle: what you can see from your seat, what gets passed over your head, what you are saving for last.
  2. Write the Purim megillah reading as someone hearing the story for the first time, in a language they understand.Fact: the megillah may be read in any language its listeners understand.
  3. Pack a Purim basket for a neighbor in words: what goes in, and why you chose those two things.Fact: mishloach manot means sending of portions: at least two different foods for one person.

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All 61 prompts

The story retold 13

  • Esther has kept one thing about herself secret in the palace. Write the evening of the Purim story when she decides to tell it. Fact: Esther does not say that she is Jewish, as Mordecai told her, until her second feast.
  • In the Purim story everyone at the palace gate bows to Haman but one man. Write the scene as someone standing nearby. Fact: Mordecai, who sits at the palace gate, refuses to bow down to Haman.
  • Mordecai learns that two palace guards are plotting against the king. Write how he gets word to the palace in time. Fact: the plot is stopped, and Mordecai's service is written into the daily record of the court.
  • Retell the Purim story as Hatach, the palace servant who carries the messages between Esther and Mordecai. Fact: in the Book of Esther, Hatach, one of the palace servants, is the go-between for the two.
  • Tell how Purim got its name, in the voice of the lot that was cast. Fact: Purim is the plural of pur, a lot. In the story Haman casts lots to choose a date.
  • Tell the day Mordecai is led through the city on the king's own horse, as a child watching from the street. Fact: Haman suggests the honor thinking it is meant for him, and is told to give it to Mordecai.
  • Tell the whole Purim story in six sentences, as a grandparent telling it to the youngest child at the table. Angle: one sentence each for the king, Esther, Mordecai, Haman, the feast and the day everyone was safe.
  • Write Esther's last morning in her cousin Mordecai's house, before the Purim story takes her to the palace. Fact: Esther was orphaned young and brought up by her cousin Mordecai.
  • Write Esther's walk to the throne room in the Purim story, on the day she goes to the king to ask for help. Fact: Esther tells Mordecai that nobody is allowed to approach the king. She goes anyway.
  • Write Queen Vashti's side of the opening of the Purim story: the king sends for her, and she says no. Fact: Vashti refuses the king's order to appear before his guests, and loses her place as queen.
  • Write the day at the end of the Purim story when Mordecai sets down that the rescue is to be remembered every year. Fact: Mordecai institutes a yearly commemoration. In most places Purim falls on the 14th of the month of Adar.
  • Write the first feast Queen Esther gives in the Purim story, as the palace cook who has just heard the guest list. Fact: Esther invites the king and Haman to a feast, and there asks them both to a second one.
  • Write the night King Ahasuerus cannot sleep, as the servant who is called in to read him the court records. Fact: the records remind the king that Mordecai once saved his life and was never thanked.

Costumes and masks 12

  • Describe a Purim costume from the hat down, then say in one sentence who is under it. Fact: wearing masks and costumes is a Purim custom.
  • Describe the costume box on the morning after Purim, in the voice of the box. First line: They always put the crown in last, on top of everything, as if I would forget.
  • Mordecai wears two very different outfits in the Purim story: sackcloth one day, the king's robes another. Write the change. Fact: both outfits are named among the reasons given for dressing up at Purim.
  • Nobody at the Purim party can tell who is inside the best costume. Write the guessing. Fact: one explanation given for Purim costumes points to Esther, who hid who she was.
  • Two friends arrive at the Purim party in the very same costume. Write the first minute. First line: We looked at each other the way you look at a mirror that is running late.
  • Write a Purim costume parade as the person at the very back, who can see every costume but their own. Fact: Purim parades have a name of their own, Adloyada.
  • Write a street in Italy more than five hundred years ago, on the day someone first wears a mask for Purim. Fact: the custom probably began among Italian Jews at the end of the 15th century.
  • Write one scene of a Purim spiel: the Purim story played for laughs by your class or your family. Who is cast as the king? Fact: a Purim spiel is a Purim play, a comic acting-out of the Purim story.
  • Write the making of a Purim costume out of three things that were already in the house. Angle: a sheet, a belt, a colander. Who helped, and which part would not stay on?
  • Write what you would say from behind a Purim mask that you would not say with your own face showing. Angle: a joke, a thank-you, a dare. Does the mask come off before the reply?
  • You may come to the Purim party as anyone in the Purim story. Choose, and write why. Angle: a queen with a secret, a cousin at the gate, a king who cannot sleep, a messenger.
  • Your little brother or sister wants to go to the Purim party as a hamantash. Write the design meeting. Angle: three corners, a filling, and arms that have to come out somewhere.

Baskets for the neighbors 12

  • A Purim basket is left at your door with no name on it. Write who you think sent it, and how you find out. Angle: the handwriting on the tag, the kind of cookie, the neighbor who is smiling too much.
  • An apple and an orange may share a Purim basket, but two apples do not count as two. Write the talk at the fruit bowl. Fact: the two foods in a Purim basket are of different kinds, such as an apple and an orange.
  • Everything in a Purim basket is ready to eat. Write the label for each thing in yours, as a very proud cook. Fact: the food and drink in mishloach manot is ready to eat or drink as it arrives.
  • Pack a Purim basket for a neighbor in words: what goes in, and why you chose those two things. Fact: mishloach manot means sending of portions: at least two different foods for one person.
  • The Purim baskets have to be out before dark. Write the last delivery of the afternoon. Fact: mishloach manot are sent and delivered during the daylight hours of Purim.
  • Purim has gifts for people in need as well as baskets for friends. Write about giving one so that nobody knows it was you. Fact: giving charity to the poor is one of the four main obligations of Purim day.
  • Tell the day of a Purim basket in the basket's own voice: packed, carried, handed over, emptied. First line: I was a perfectly ordinary basket until somebody put a ribbon on me.
  • Two families send each other exactly the same Purim basket. Write both doors opening. Angle: the same cookies, the same ribbon, two different faces. Who laughs first?
  • Write the delivery of a Purim basket as the child trusted to carry it down the street. Fact: the baskets are customarily delivered by a go-between, and children are often the carriers.
  • Write the list of everyone your family is sending a Purim basket to, with one reason beside each made-up name. Angle: the one who lent a ladder, the one who waves, the one nobody has met yet.
  • Write the packing of a Purim basket for someone new on the street who has never been given one. Fact: the gifts are meant to add to friendship and to see that everyone has food for the Purim feast.
  • Write the thank-you a neighbor gives at the door for a Purim basket, and what they noticed first. Angle: not the biggest thing in it. The one small thing somebody remembered they liked.

The noisemaker 12

  • A very small child shakes the Purim noisemaker at the wrong name. Write what the room does. Angle: kind laughter. Who leans over to show the child when the right moment comes?
  • Describe the sound of a Purim grager to someone who has never heard one. Fact: the noisy ratchet is called a grager in Yiddish and a ra'ashan in Hebrew, from the word for noise.
  • Invent a new way to make noise at the one name in the Purim reading, using nothing you have to buy. Fact: some people wrote Haman's name on the soles of their shoes and stamped their feet.
  • Long ago, two smooth stones were knocked together at Purim until the name written on them wore away. Write that sound. Fact: writing Haman's name on two stones and knocking them together is an old Purim custom.
  • The megillah is read twice at Purim. Compare the evening reading with the one the next morning. Fact: the Book of Esther is read in public in the evening and again on the following morning.
  • Not every synagogue uses noisemakers at Purim. Write a megillah reading where the name passes in quiet. Fact: Spanish and Portuguese Jews and other Sephardic Jews do not use them during the reading.
  • Write the moment in the Purim megillah reading when one name is read aloud and the whole room erupts. Fact: when Haman's name is read, the congregation makes noise to blot it out.
  • Write the Purim megillah reading as someone hearing the story for the first time, in a language they understand. Fact: the megillah may be read in any language its listeners understand.
  • Write the Purim megillah reading from the reader's side: how do you keep your place when the room keeps drowning out one name? Fact: Haman's name comes up 54 times in the reading.
  • Write the silence right after the Purim noise, when the reader waits to go on. Angle: one last rattle from the back, a cough, a page. How does the reader know it is time?
  • Write the steps for making a Purim noisemaker at home, as a list that a younger child could follow. Angle: a jar, dry beans and a lid that stays on. End with how to hold it, and when to stop.
  • You are the Purim noisemaker. Write your one busy day of the year and the long wait on either side of it. First line: Eleven months in a drawer, and then somebody says the name.

The feast 12

  • A dumpling on the Purim table keeps its filling hidden. Write about a food with a secret inside. Fact: kreplach, filled dumplings served in soup, are a Purim food of Ashkenazi Jews.
  • Describe the table set for the Purim feast before anyone has sat down. Fact: a festive meal, the se'udat Purim, is held on Purim day.
  • Nobody is sure why a Purim hamantash has three corners. Write your own explanation, and make it a good one. Fact: the reason for the shape is uncertain. One legend says Haman wore a three-cornered hat.
  • Poppy seed or prune, apricot or chocolate: write the family argument over the hamantash filling at Purim. Fact: poppy seed is the oldest and most traditional filling, with prune a close second.
  • The Purim pastry has two names, one meaning Haman's pockets and one meaning Haman's ears. Write which name fits it better. Fact: hamantaschen is Yiddish, Haman's pockets. The Hebrew name, oznei Haman, means Haman's ears.
  • Tell the story of the last hamantash left on the plate at the Purim feast. Angle: everyone wants it and nobody will take it. Whose hand moves first?
  • Tradition says Queen Esther ate seeds, nuts and beans in the palace. Write her at the royal table, choosing. Fact: seeds, nuts and legumes are customary Purim foods because of that tradition.
  • Write how to fold a hamantash for Purim, as someone whose first three came open in the oven. Fact: the filling goes in the middle of a circle of dough, and the sides are brought in to make a triangle.
  • Write the baking of a Purim bread shaped in a long twisted ring and topped with small colorful candies. Fact: koilitch, a raisin challah baked this way, is the Purim bread of Polish Jews.
  • Write the clearing-up after the Purim feast as a list of what is left behind. Angle: crumbs in three corners, a paper crown, one shoe, a noisemaker that still works.
  • Write the greetings at the door as the guests arrive for the Purim feast. Fact: a common Hebrew greeting is Chag Purim Sameach, loosely Happy Purim holiday.
  • Write the Purim feast as the youngest person at the table, who has been waiting for it all day. Angle: what you can see from your seat, what gets passed over your head, what you are saving for last.

How it works

These Purim writing prompts stay with what belongs to this one day. Lines marked Fact follow the Wikipedia articles on Purim, mishloach manot and the hamantash; the families, neighbors and party guests are for the writer to invent.

Read the full guide

The Purim story from the side

Thirteen prompts retell the Book of Esther through someone at the edge of it: Hatach, who carries the messages; the servant who reads to a sleepless king; a child in the street as Mordecai rides past. The facts are the story's. The thoughts are the writer's.

Customs told as customs

The costume, the basket of two foods, the noise at Haman's name and the feast each get twelve prompts. Customs differ between communities, and the lines say so where the sources do: not every synagogue uses noisemakers.

  • Start from one object: a mask, a ribbon, a rattle, a pastry.
  • If your family does not keep Purim, write as a careful guest and invent only the people.

Questions and answers

What is a good Purim writing prompt?

One built on a real custom. Pack a Purim basket for a neighbor in words and say why you chose those two things. Or tell how Purim got its name, in the voice of the lot that was cast.

When is Purim?

On the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, and on the 15th in Jerusalem. In a Hebrew leap year, which has two months of Adar, it is kept in the second.

What does the word Purim mean?

Lots. Purim is the plural of the Hebrew word pur, a lot. In the Book of Esther, Haman casts lots to choose a date, and the festival takes its name from that.

Why do people make noise during the megillah reading?

To blot out Haman's name each time it is read aloud. The usual noisemaker is a ratchet, called a grager in Yiddish and a ra'ashan in Hebrew. Some communities keep the reading quiet.

What are mishloach manot?

Gifts of food or drink sent to family, friends and others on Purim day, also called Purim baskets. Each holds at least two different foods, ready to eat, for one person.

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