A child draws a tiger with every stripe going sideways. Write the tiger's polite letter of correction.Fact: the stripes are mostly vertical; only on the legs and forehead do they run across.
A village and a tiger share the edge of the same forest. Write one evening from each side.Fact: in one park, tigers kept away from places people used and were more active at night.
A friendly tiger makes a soft snorting sound. Write the one time this year a lone tiger has reason to make it.Fact: the low, soft snort is used in friendly meetings, much as small cats purr.
A child draws a tiger with every stripe going sideways. Write the tiger's polite letter of correction.Fact: the stripes are mostly vertical; only on the legs and forehead do they run across.
A tiger has a white spot on the back of each ear. Write what a cub walking behind its mother reads in those two spots.Fact: tigers turn their ears to show the white spots, and mothers and cubs do it to each other.
A tiger looks at its reflection in a still pool. Write what it makes of the striped animal looking back.Angle: does it wade in to meet the stranger, or lie down and outwait it?
A tiger's stripes run up and down, like the shadows of reeds. Write a tiger standing still, as a deer almost sees it.Fact: stripes hide a tiger in the upright light and shade of trees, reeds and tall grass.
A tiger's tail is ringed with thick bands and ends in a black tip. Write the tail's own account of a day spent following a tiger.Fact: the tail is about half as long as the rest of the tiger and helps it keep its balance.
Describe a tiger for someone who thinks it is orange all over.Fact: white fur covers a tiger's underside, the insides of its legs and parts of its face.
Few cats are striped at all. Write a meeting of the cat family at which the tiger is asked to explain its coat.Fact: the tiger is one of only a few striped cat species.
In the far north a tiger grows a thick winter coat. Write the same stripes against snow.Fact: the Siberian tiger grows an especially thick winter coat, with hairs far longer than other tigers'.
No two tigers wear the same stripes. Write how a tiger cub picks out its mother in tall grass.Fact: the stripes are uniquely patterned in each individual, Wikipedia's tiger article says.
The pink tip of a tiger's nose gains small black dots as the years pass. Write an old tiger's nose as a diary.Fact: the nose ends in a pink tip with small black dots, and the dots increase with age.
Stripes hide a tiger in a forest. Write the tiger's least favorite place: an open field at noon.Angle: nothing upright to stand among. Where does it go, and how fast?
To a deer, an orange tiger may look green. Write the forest as the deer sees it, tiger included.Fact: a tiger's prey is color blind and may see the orange coat as green, the article says.
Write a missing poster for a tiger that describes it by its stripes alone.Angle: the pattern over the eyes, on the shoulder, around the tail. No name and no size.
Write a poem about a tiger with one line for each stripe you can picture across its back.Fact: some stripes split in two, and some split and join again, Wikipedia's tiger article says.
Write a tiger moving through bamboo at dusk without once using the words orange, black or stripe.Angle: use light and shadow. Let the reader lose sight of the tiger twice.
A hunter alone 15
A friendly tiger makes a soft snorting sound. Write the one time this year a lone tiger has reason to make it.Fact: the low, soft snort is used in friendly meetings, much as small cats purr.
A tiger covers the rest of its dinner with leaves, and a crow is watching. Write what each of them does next.Fact: a tiger eats until full, covers what is left with leaves and dirt, and comes back to it.
A tiger leaves messages on trees for tigers it may never meet. Write what one scratched trunk says.Fact: a tiger marks its range with claw marks and scent, and others can tell who left them.
A tiger swims a river that is miles across. Write the crossing, bank to bank.Fact: tigers easily cross rivers as wide as 5 miles, Wikipedia's tiger article says.
A tiger too big to climb is scolded by a monkey from a branch. Write the conversation.Fact: a tiger's size makes it a poorer climber than many other cats.
The deer looks up too soon, and the tiger does not bother to chase. Write the tiger's walk home.Fact: if prey spots a tiger before it is close enough, the tiger does not pursue it.
For as long as a day, a tiger can wait in one spot. Write the wait.Fact: a tiger lies hidden until prey is close, and may even doze off while it waits.
In the dry season a tiger at a water hole has only to wait. Write who comes to drink, and who decides not to.Fact: a tiger will wait by a watering hole for prey, particularly on hot summer days.
On a hot day a tiger wades into a river and stays there. Write the afternoon from the water.Fact: a tiger is a powerful swimmer and soaks in water, particularly on hot days.
Tigers are quiet animals. Write a tiger's walk through the forest by everything that does not make a sound.Fact: tigers are normally silent, Wikipedia's tiger article says, though they can roar.
Tigers are sprinters, not distance runners. Write the few seconds in which one tiger decides to give up.Fact: a tiger can sprint at about 35 miles an hour but drops a chase if the prey pulls ahead.
Tigers live alone. Write a day on which one tiger meets nobody and is not lonely.Fact: adult tigers lead largely solitary lives, each within its own home range.
Two tigers settle who owns a path without a fight. Write the stare.Fact: disputes between tigers are usually settled by intimidation rather than fighting.
Write a tiger's list of excuses for the deer that got away.Fact: estimates of how often a tiger's hunt succeeds run from 5 in 100 to 50 in 100.
Write one leap of a tiger in slow motion, from the gathered paws to the landing on the far bank of a stream.Fact: Wikipedia's tiger article gives a tiger's leap as 10 meters, about 33 feet.
A cub learns 15
A tiger cub can climb a tree its mother cannot. Write the view from the branch, and the problem of getting down.Fact: cubs under 16 months old may climb trees routinely; adults are too heavy to do it well.
A tiger cub follows its mother for the first time and keeps losing sight of her. Write the walk.Fact: cubs can leave the den at about two months old, and are then able to follow their mother.
A tiger cub goes along on its first real hunt and is told one thing: keep still. Write how long that lasts.Fact: between eight and ten months old, cubs start to go with their mother on hunts.
A tiger cub grows so fast that the den seems to shrink. Write its complaint.Fact: cubs quadruple in size during their first month, National Geographic Kids says.
A tiger cub hides in the grass while its mother hunts, as it was told to. Write the hour of holding still.Fact: small cubs still hide in vegetation when their mother goes hunting.
A tiger cub tries to roar, and what comes out is a meow. Write the practice session.Fact: cubs call with meows; a grown tiger's roar carries almost two miles.
A young tiger leaves to find a range of its own. Write its last walk through its mother's forest.Fact: young tigers become independent at around 18 to 24 months of age.
A young tigress settles next door to her mother, and her brother goes much farther. Write what each says on the day they part.Fact: young females set up their first ranges close to their mothers'; males travel farther.
The smallest of three tiger cubs has a plan for getting to dinner first, just once. Write it.Fact: the biggest cub of a litter is usually the boss and the first to eat its fill.
Tiger cubs have a father who visits. Write the afternoon the big male walks through, as the boldest cub tells it.Fact: the male of the range raises no cubs, but he visits the families and mixes with them.
Tiger mothers grunt and their cubs meow back. Write a roll call in the tall grass at dusk.Fact: tiger mothers call their cubs with grunts, and the cubs answer with meows.
Two tiger cubs play at fighting, and the smaller one wins for the first time. Write the minute after.Fact: young tigers bond through play fighting and practice stalking.
Write a tiger cub's list of everything in the forest it has pounced on so far, and how each one took it.First line: 1. A leaf. It did not fight back. 2. My sister. She did.
Write the lesson in which a tiger mother teaches the pounce, as a list of the cub's mistakes.Fact: tigers learn to hunt from their mothers, though some of the skill may be inborn.
Write the story a tiger mother tells her cubs about the river.Angle: what it gives, how wide it is and why they will cross it one day.
A forest that shrinks 15
A camera tied to a tree takes a tiger's picture in the night. Write what the people who check it say in the morning.Fact: researchers study wild tigers with camera traps, and countries run schemes to monitor them.
A road is cut through a tiger's forest. Write the first night the tiger comes to the edge of it.Fact: in central India, roads and railway lines have cut protected tiger forests into pieces.
A strip of trees is left standing so that tigers can walk from one forest to the next. Write the corridor from a tiger's side.Fact: several of the countries where tigers live have set up wildlife corridors.
A tiger's forest needs deer as much as it needs trees. Write the forest as a list of who depends on whom.Fact: how much prey there is helps decide how large a home range a tiger keeps.
A village and a tiger share the edge of the same forest. Write one evening from each side.Fact: in one park, tigers kept away from places people used and were more active at night.
A young tiger walks hundreds of miles to find a forest with room. Write three stops on the way.Fact: tigers have traveled as far as 400 miles to reach other tiger populations.
Every country with wild tigers protects them by law. Write that law in your own words, short enough for a signpost.Fact: the tiger is legally protected in all the countries where it lives.
In one cold corner of Russia, tigers may be coming back. Write the first tiger paw print in snow where there were none for years.Fact: in the Siberian region there is hope of a comeback, National Geographic Kids says.
Should a town give up a new road to leave a forest whole for tigers? Write both sides, then choose.Angle: who needs the road, and why? What does the forest lose if it is cut in two?
The tiger is an endangered animal. Write a letter about today's tigers to someone who will be your age in fifty years.Fact: the tiger has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1986.
Tigers live in many kinds of forest, even mangroves by the sea. Write a tiger's walk through a forest that stands in water.Fact: tigers live in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, among other kinds of forest.
Tigers no longer live on the islands of Java and Bali. Write about a forest that still has everything but its tiger.Fact: tigers are gone from Java and Bali and from large parts of mainland Asia.
Tigers once lived across much of Asia. Write an old map's memory of where its tigers were.Fact: tigers now live in less than 7 percent of the land they once ranged over.
Where farms replace forest, a tiger has less room. Write the shrinking as the tiger measures it: in walks.Fact: land cleared for farming and logging has shrunk the tiger's habitat, National Geographic Kids says.
Write a notice for the last tree at the edge of a tiger's forest, asking that it be left standing.Angle: who signs it? The tiger, the deer, the owl. Keep it to five lines.
How it works
These tiger writing prompts follow a cat that lives by itself, waits more than it runs and walks into rivers on purpose. Fifty-two of the sixty have a checked fact under them.
Read the full guide
A big cat that hunts alone and swims
Wikipedia's tiger article says adult tigers live largely alone, each in its own home range, and that a tiger is a powerful swimmer that soaks in water on hot days. The hunter prompts are built on both: a wait, a river crossing, a message scratched on a tree.
No two coats alike
National Geographic Kids says no two tigers have exactly the same stripes. The stripe prompts use that and what the article adds: stripes hide a tiger among upright shadows, and a deer may see the orange as green.
In a hunter prompt, let the deer get away. The tiger's walk home is the better scene.
Questions and answers
What is a good tiger writing prompt?
Write a missing poster for a tiger that describes it by its stripes alone. Or write the stare by which two tigers settle who owns a path without a fight.
Can tigers swim?
Yes. Wikipedia's tiger article calls the tiger a powerful swimmer that easily crosses rivers as wide as 5 miles, and National Geographic Kids says tigers seem to enjoy water, unlike most cats.
Do tigers live alone?
Mostly. Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives, Wikipedia's tiger article says. Cubs stay with their mother until they are about a year and a half to two years old, and the male of the range visits the families.
Are these tiger writing prompts for kids?
Yes. No prompt shows a catch: the deer gets away, or the hunt is over before the writing starts. The shrinking forest prompts ask for a map, a letter or an opinion, and none is set in a zoo.