• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Zoo Writing Prompts

A visit with the map still folded, a keeper's morning, the animals' evening, a question to argue.

Zoo Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. Should visitors be allowed to feed the animals at a zoo? Write your answer and your reasons.Angle: who is the rule for, the animals or the people? Say what visitors could do instead.
  2. Compare two animals that live side by side at the zoo and could not be less alike.Angle: size, speed, noise, how they eat. Finish with the one thing they share.
  3. A zookeeper teaches a young animal something its mother would have taught it. Write the lesson.Angle: how to climb, how to swim, how to crack a nut. The keeper is not good at it either.

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All 60 prompts

A day at the zoo 15

  • A zoo animal looks straight at you and does not look away. Write what passes between you. First line: Everyone else moved on to the next window. I could not.
  • The animal you most wanted to see at the zoo is asleep. Write the ten minutes you wait at the glass. First line: It was a rock. Then the rock breathed.
  • Compare two animals that live side by side at the zoo and could not be less alike. Angle: size, speed, noise, how they eat. Finish with the one thing they share.
  • Describe feeding time at the zoo as someone at the back of the crowd who cannot quite see. Angle: tell it from the crowd's noises. When do they gasp, and when do they laugh?
  • It starts to rain at the zoo and the paths empty. Write what you see that sunny-day visitors never do. Angle: which animals come out, which go in, and which do not seem to notice?
  • Stand at one spot in the zoo with your eyes shut and write what you hear. Angle: a far-off roar, a stroller wheel, a peacock, a keeper's bucket. Which sound is closest?
  • Write a day of zoo visitors as one animal sees them from its side of the glass. Angle: choose the animal first. What does it think the visitors are there for?
  • Write a guide to the zoo for a visitor who has only one hour. Angle: be bossy. Skip this, run past that, stop here. Give a reason for each order.
  • Write a postcard from the zoo to someone at home, with room for only four sentences. Angle: one animal, one smell, one thing that went wrong and one thing you wish you had seen.
  • Write a zoo visit as told by the youngest person in the group, who rides on someone's shoulders. Angle: what can you see from up there, and what does everyone point at that you miss?
  • Write about a day at the zoo, starting at the gate with the map still folded. Angle: you can only get to five animals before closing. Which five, and in what order?
  • Write the last ten minutes at the zoo, after the announcement that the gates are closing. First line: We had not seen the otters, and my sister was not leaving without the otters.
  • Write the zoo's morning announcement for a day when one thing is new. Angle: a baby born overnight, a new arrival, a path closed. Keep it short enough to say in two breaths.
  • You read every sign at one zoo enclosure. Write the sign you think is missing. Angle: what did you want to know that nobody told you? Write it the way a sign would.
  • Your partner for the class trip to the zoo knows a fact about every animal. Write the day. Angle: annoying at the giraffes, useful in the reptile house. When do you change your mind?

The keeper 15

  • A zoo visitor thinks an animal looks bored and says so to its keeper. Write the talk. Angle: the keeper knows what the animal did all morning. Does either change the other's mind?
  • A zookeeper explains the job to a class, starting with the part nobody imagines. Angle: it is mostly cleaning, chopping and watching. Make the watching sound like the best part.
  • A zookeeper has looked after the same elephant for twenty years. Write what each knows about the other. Angle: habits, moods, the sound of footsteps. Who trained whom?
  • A zookeeper has to move a stubborn animal from one enclosure to another. Write the plan and what happens. Angle: the plan has four steps. The animal has not read the plan.
  • A zookeeper teaches a young animal something its mother would have taught it. Write the lesson. Angle: how to climb, how to swim, how to crack a nut. The keeper is not good at it either.
  • Interview a zookeeper. Write your five questions, then the answers you think you would get. Angle: skip the favorite animal. Ask what she checks first each morning, and why.
  • It is a new keeper's first day at the zoo. Write the hour when the animals test her. Angle: who ignores her, who steals from her pocket, and who decides she will do?
  • It is weighing day at the zoo. Write how a keeper gets a tortoise, a parrot and an otter onto the scale. Angle: one walks on, one will not hold still and one wants a grape first. Which is which?
  • Write a morning in the zoo kitchen, where the keepers get the animals' meals ready. Angle: every diner wants something different. Who is the fussiest eater in the zoo?
  • Write a zookeeper's goodbye on the day an animal she raised moves to another zoo. First line: She packed his favorite log, though the other zoo surely had logs.
  • Write a zookeeper's morning, from unlocking the first gate to the first visitor. Angle: everything that has to happen before the zoo looks ready. Who gets breakfast first?
  • Write a zookeeper's talk to the crowd at the giraffe house, and the one question she did not expect. First line: "Yes, at the back?" "Does he know he's tall?"
  • Write about the zookeeper in charge of the smallest animals, the ones visitors walk past. Angle: frogs, beetles, mice. Why does she think hers is the best job in the place?
  • Write the page of a zookeeper's logbook for a day when an animal would not eat. Angle: what she tried, in order, and the small odd thing that finally worked.
  • Write the zookeeper's last walk around the zoo before she locks up. Angle: she says goodnight differently at each enclosure. Write three of the goodnights.

After closing time 15

  • A child's stuffed toy is left behind and spends a night in the zoo. Write how it gets home. Angle: which real animal finds it first, and who carries it to the lost-and-found box?
  • A storm closes the zoo for a whole day. Write the day from inside. Angle: no visitors, and the keepers still come. Which animals miss the crowd?
  • A zoo animal that sleeps all day wakes when the visitors go home. Write its side of the story. First line: They all think I am lazy. They have never once stayed late enough.
  • After closing time, the oldest animal in the zoo tells the youngest how the place used to be. Write it. Angle: what was here before the new path, and who lived in this enclosure first?
  • After closing, the zoo animals hold a contest for the best impression of a visitor. Write the winning act. Angle: the pointing, the tapping on the glass, the photo with a thumb in it.
  • In the morning a keeper finds one small thing out of place at the zoo. Write her guess and the truth. Angle: a bucket on a roof, a hat on a tortoise. Her explanation is sensible and wrong.
  • The lights go out in the zoo's reptile house at closing time. Write what the snake thinks about until morning. Angle: a slow thinker with all night. One thought, followed all the way to the end.
  • The night keeper at the zoo writes a letter home at three in the morning. Write the letter. First line: It is never quiet here. It is only a different kind of loud.
  • Snow falls on the zoo at midnight. Write how three different animals take it. Angle: one from a cold country, one from a hot one and one that has never seen snow at all.
  • Two zoo animals that can hear but never see each other talk across the path every night. Write one talk. Angle: a lion and a sea lion, say. Each has a wrong idea of what the other looks like.
  • Write the evening news as one zoo animal reports it to the others after the gates close. Angle: today's headlines. A dropped ice cream, a school group, a new sign nobody can read.
  • Write the zoo at night as the night keeper hears it on her rounds. Angle: one flashlight, a long path and sounds that are different after dark. Which one makes her stop?
  • Your family is at a sleepover night at the zoo. Write what you hear from your sleeping bag. Angle: list the sounds in the order they come. Which one do you never work out?
  • The zoo gates shut and the last car leaves. Write the first five minutes of the animals' evening. Angle: who stretches, who stops showing off, and who says "finally"?
  • The zoo's peacock walks free on the paths all night. Write the round he makes. Angle: he thinks he is the night manager. Who does he check on, and who checks on him?

An opinion to argue 15

  • Are zoo animals wild animals? Write your answer and say what you mean by wild. Angle: born in a zoo, fed by a keeper, still with claws. Where is the line?
  • If you could add one animal to your nearest zoo, which would it be? Make the argument. Angle: say where it would live, what it needs and why visitors would stop for it.
  • Is it better to watch one zoo animal for an hour or to see the whole zoo in an hour? Pick a side. Angle: use a real visit if you have one. What do you still remember from it?
  • Is the zoo a good place for a school trip? Persuade a principal who has one bus to give. Angle: say what a class can learn there that a video cannot show.
  • Should a zoo give its animals names? Argue yes or no. Angle: what does a name change for the visitor, for the keeper and for the animal?
  • Should a zoo stay open at night? Give your reasons for or against. Angle: think of the animals that wake after dark, and of the ones that need to sleep.
  • Should animals be kept in zoos? Write what you think and why. Angle: picture one animal a zoo is good for and one it is not. Then answer.
  • Should visitors be allowed to feed the animals at a zoo? Write your answer and your reasons. Angle: who is the rule for, the animals or the people? Say what visitors could do instead.
  • Should zoos keep only animals that are in danger in the wild? Write what you think. Angle: think about the common animals children love. Would people still come?
  • What is a zoo for? Write one paragraph that answers the question. Angle: for looking, for learning, for keeping animals safe. Choose the one you believe and defend it.
  • Which is the better visit, a zoo or an aquarium? Write your case. Angle: compare what you can hear, how close you get and how long you want to stay.
  • Which zoo animal has the best life, and which the hardest? Argue for your two choices. Angle: think about space, weather, company and how much each one gets stared at.
  • Write a letter to a zoo director asking for one change to one enclosure. Angle: say what you saw, what you would change and who it would help.
  • Write a review of a zoo, real or made up, with a score and three reasons for it. Angle: judge it by how the animals looked, not by the snack bar. Then mention the snack bar.
  • Write a zoo notice that would stop people tapping on the glass, in twenty words or fewer. Angle: asking nicely, a joke or the animal's own voice. Which works best, and why?

How it works

These zoo writing prompts stay inside the gates. Some are the visit; the rest go where visitors cannot, into the kitchen where the meals are made and onto the paths after the last car has left.

Read the full guide

Zoo animals writing prompts

The animals get the page once the gates shut. One reports the day's news to the others, a sleeper wakes when the crowd goes home, and two neighbors who have never seen each other talk across the path. Choose the animal before the first sentence: the piece changes with who is telling it.

Writing prompts about zoos, for and against

Fifteen prompts ask for an opinion and take no side: whether animals belong in zoos at all, whether they should have names, whether the gates should open at night. The first asks the writer to picture one animal a zoo is good for and one it is not.

  • Write from one spot. A whole zoo is a list; ten minutes at one window is a scene.

Questions and answers

What is a good zoo writing prompt?

One that stays in a single place. The animal you most wanted to see is asleep: write the ten minutes you wait at the glass. Or the gates are closing and nobody in your family has seen the otters.

Can I use these after a class trip to the zoo?

Yes. The day at the zoo prompts work best with a real visit behind them: a postcard home in four sentences, feeding time from the back of the crowd, the sign you think was missing from an enclosure.

Are there prompts about being a zookeeper?

Fifteen. They cover the morning before the first visitor, a logbook page for a day when an animal would not eat, a talk at the giraffe house and the goodbye when an animal she raised moves to another zoo.

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