Night Zookeeper Blog

March is World Creative Writing Month and this year at Night Zookeeper we are challenging our young writers with a 5 Million Word Quest. Every word published by our Night Zookeepers will count towards our collective goal of reaching 5 Million Words!

Writing is one of the most used types of communication, and it’s a skill your child will need in their academic journey. However, teaching your child to love writing can be an extremely challenging task. This is why we've gathered our favorite ways to inspire a love for writing in your child!

Happy new year, and happy January! Now that the holidays seem like a distant memory, we must focus on the year ahead and on all the exciting days and events coming our way! Here are the best January writing prompts to get your child excited for the new year.

Encouraging your child to practice literacy skills can be challenging, especially if they find literacy boring, or look at it as schoolwork. From family game nights, to epic singing battles, we hope these suggestions help spark a passion for learning in your child, all while having fun!

Writing can be a challenging skill to learn, but at Night Zookeeper, we’re big believers in making writing fun. Here are some awesome writing activities that will transform your child’s attitude toward writing!

Christmas is many people’s favorite holiday, and here at Night Zookeeper, we love to celebrate friendship, joy, and the power of creativity during this time of the year! Encourage your child to express themselves creatively this holiday season with some fun, Christmas creative writing prompts!

Keep the festivities going! These Christmas writing prompts are all about what truly matters, not only during the holiday season, but all year-round - gratitude, compassion, kindness, family and friends.

December is most people’s favorite month, as it’s a month full of joy, festivities and celebrations! This is also a very busy time of the year, and we’re here to help you by providing some free, educational writing prompts for your child to try during the break.

October is the first full month of a brand new season, and as usual, we have lots to write about as we celebrate World Smile Day, World Animal Day, World Teachers’ Day and Halloween! If you’re on the hunt for some amazingly creative writing prompts, you’ve come to the right place!

Recently, grammar has been argued to no longer be an important area of study when it comes to English language. Technology is now used in classrooms and workplaces worldwide to enable grammar to be easily corrected at the click of a button. We’re here to argue why it remains important for children to learn grammar!

Looking for some September-themed inspiration? These writing prompts are perfect to try this month, whether you're getting ready for Autumn or enjoying the first few days of Spring!

Looking for a great way to spark an interest in writing? This list of young writers competitions offer an insight on current events that your child can participate in (and win amazing prizes)! Writing competitions are a wonderful way to motivate your child to write more, so be sure to give these a go!

In August, we celebrate International Dog Day, Ice Cream Sandwich Day, International Elephant Day and lots more! Here are some awesome, August-themed writing prompts to try with your child - we guarantee hours of creativity!

We have much to celebrate in the month of July, including some awesome international animal days, yummy holidays and friendship! Let your child's imagination run wild with our favorite July-themed writing prompts!

Paragraphs help to organize ideas into separate sections with the aim to make it easier for the reader to consume the text at hand and understand the information shared. In this article, we’re giving you our top tips on how you can help your child to successfully write a paragraph!

It's finally time to bring out the beach towels, swimwear and sun cream! However, we can't forget how important it is to keep your child's brain active during the summer break. Our amazing summer writing prompts will do just that!

Have you ever wondered how important drawing is in terms of writing skills development? Drawing is considered to be the foundation needed in order for children to be able to develop writing skills at an older age. Learn more about how drawing and writing work together and their benefits here!

A summary is an overview or condensed version of a full story or text. It can sometimes be a challenging task to accomplish, as your child will have to be very selective on what to include. Learn more about how you can guide your child on how to successfully write a summary here!

“My child hates writing” is a phrase we hear a lot from parents who have not yet found an effective way to transform their reluctant writer’s attitude toward this task. Here are our best tips on how to get your child to love writing, from parents who have overcome this obstacle!

Let your child's imagination run wild with our awesome May Writing Prompts! These writing prompts have been created to help your child develop their skills in various styles of writing, including opinion pieces, persuasive texts, storytelling, list-making and letter writing. Be sure to share these with your child!

These Environmental Writing Prompts have been created to raise awareness about the current environmental crisis and to get your child to think creatively about all the ways they can help!

Celebrate the start of April, we have some amazingly fun April Writing Prompts to keep your children inspired to write! April is a busy month, with lots of great things to celebrate, including Earth Day, World Penguin Day and Poetic Earth Month!

Celebrate Mother's Day with these amazing writing prompts! Mothers are really important role models and should be celebrated and cherished! They do so much for us a daily basis and we should dedicate this day to show gratitude and love for them!

Creative writing can be a real positive force for children’s lives and development, but how does a child get started with creative writing? There are many ways, but it can often be helpful to have a structure to work from, so we’ve outlined some simple steps on how your child can write a story and enjoy themselves in the process!

World Creative Writing Month is back for 2022! This is your chance to challenge your children and students to write as many stories as possible throughout the month of March.

March is the month of new beginnings and creativity! With Springtime around the corner and World Book Day fast approaching, we've gathered some awesome March writing prompts which will for sure inspire your kid(s) to get excited about some cool upcoming events!

To celebrate the kick-off of the Winter Olympics, we've created some awesome writing prompts to encourage your child to keep up with this amazing sporting event! Not only will these prompts develop your child's creative writing skills, but they'll also spark an interest for this cultural occasion!

Creative writing can be a great way to help ease a child's anxiety. Hear the story of how one child found solace in writing with Night Zookeeper.

Looking for some writing inspiration? Well, look no further! In this blog, we share with you some of our favourite February writing prompts for kids! As Valentine's Day approaches, it's always good to remember and celebrate our loved ones and that is exactly what these prompts will prompt your child to do! Happy February!

Ever wondered what goes into preparing your child for learning how to write? Well, look no further! We've got some awesome tips from trusted educators and fellow parents which will for sure set your child up for success!

New Year's Day marks a lot of new beginnings, which might be difficult for children to understand. It marks both the start of a new year, as well as a new decade! We thought it would be fun to serve up some fresh new writing prompts to help your children better understand what all the buzz about a new year is about. What better character to deliver these prompts, but Maji the Time Travelling Elephant? She knows *a lot* about new years!

These fun facts for kids are designed to teach your child about animals and encourage their creativity. We've also included fun writing prompts to help spark your child's imagination and help them write cool new things.

These holiday writing prompts are designed to spark creativity and imagination within children. We encourage children to think about what they like (or dislike) about the holiday season, but also ask them to think outside of the box about what the holidays mean to them.

Have you ever wondered why spelling is such an important skill to develop? Take a closer look at some of the main reasons why spelling is crucial for children's educational (and professional) success!

Learn about the benefits of storytelling towards child development in this article. We explore the effects of storytelling on children's learning and why it's important to introduce storytelling early.

The Night Zoo is a very magical world indeed, but we want children to recognise the magic of the world they already live in. Celebrate Earth Day with these amazing Earth Day Writing Prompts!

With these super springtime writing prompts, your young writers can continue growing their imaginations.

World Creative Writing Month was back for another year, starting March 1, 2021. This exciting competition challenged children to write as many stories as possible throughout the month. The very best writing was showcased each week with prizes up for grabs!

With an increase in the rise of coronavirus cases and many countries going into lockdowns many of your children might be facing remote learning for the foreseeable future. Are you someone who is now newly homeschooling or remote learning due to new lockdown restrictions? Never fear! Night Zookeeper can help! 💕

Whether you’re homeschooling or simply looking for creative writing prompts to do after school during the month of November, here is a list of our favorites!

Unexpected circumstances such as a protracted lockdown can seem scary, heavy and uncertain for children. There are many ways to help alleviate the negative emotions a child might experience. One such way is creative writing! Here's why.

With these fun Halloween prompts for young writers, your children will make great use of their imaginations and creative drive. Whatever your child decides to write about, we hope they will keep their writing fun and a little bit magical! 🎃

We're nearly halfway through the year already! June is an awesome month as it brings a change in seasons and plenty of smiles! We've created some June writing prompts that will encourage your child to use their imagination and have lots of fun whilst writing!

Whether you’re interested in getting your child to read or write poetry, there are numerous benefits to introducing this form of writing to them. Poetry will be all around them: be it in children’s poetry books they will encounter or simply through the songs they hear on the radio. So, how does one introduce poetry to children? How do they start writing poems, themselves? What kind of poetry is the best to start with? Poetry is varied and comes in many different shades of colour!

With these wonderful winter-themed prompts for kids, your children will make great use of their imaginations and creative drive. Whatever your child decides to write about, we hope they will keep their writing fun and a little bit magical!

Are you struggling to get your child engaged with writing? We’ve found that making writing fun is often the key to making writing stick. If you have a reluctant writer, or perhaps are just looking for fun new ways to engage your child with writing, keep reading! We’ve compiled a list of nine fun ways to practice English writing with your children.

Throughout the month of November our children were challenged to participate in The International Writing Cup Competition!

Here are 7 fun word ames to help inspire even the most reluctant readers and writers to start loving creative writing and storytelling. These games focus on improving literacy, language skills and overall enthusiasm for creative writing.

We recently set a really exciting Star Writing Challenge. To celebrate the launch of the brand new Night Zoo map, we challenged our young writers to invent a new location for the Night Zoo. To take part, they needed to create a new map location, draw a picture of it and write a short story set in this area of the zoo. This new location will then be added to the brand new Night Zoo map.

Let’s face it. Some children are natural born storytellers with creativity and imagination spilling from their fingers. For them, exploring creative writing is just the beginning of a beautiful journey. However, for some children, getting them to want to write is a tedious and stressful task. While writing might not come naturally to every child, this does not mean that your child can’t eventually learn to really love creative writing! This blog explores how to encourage your child to want to write.

Here are some fun, fall writing prompts to help spark your child’s creativity! Our autumn writing prompts will inspire your child to engage their imagination and create a new poems, persuasive essays, adventure stories, reports and short stories.

We make sure students are able to easily join in with a variety of engaging writing challenges, competitions, and resources throughout the year. If you are interested in gamified learning, edtech, creative writing, and inspiring confidence, and a love of reading in your primary-aged students, check out our calendar of events below.

Editing and making improvements in writing is a key focus within literacy teaching at the moment. It is one of the most important stages of the writing process, however, it is also the trickiest to do well.

The International Writing Cup is back for another year, with a brand new format! We’re launching a special Writing Triathlon on 1st November 2018. Students will be challenged to write three different pieces of writing that are all linked by the theme of writing an amazing adventure story.

This week, our Night Zookeeper Teacher in the spotlight is Matt Peebles. Matt is a fourth-grade teacher based in Illinois who has been using Night Zookeeper with his students for the last couple of months.

At Night Zookeeper, children have the option to submit their work to be featured on our curated class blog list. Our class blog is a great way of sharing students’ work and allow them to leave feedback on other children's work. Find out more about why blogging is important for children!

Calling all aspiring writers – the latest Star Writing Challenge is up today! We would like your students to write a 1000 word story about their own adventure in the Night Zoo. Once they step through the magical gates, where will they go and who will they meet?

Assessing students’ writing isn’t always the most enjoyable of tasks for teachers; hours spent scouring writing searching for adjectives and commas used in the right places. That’s where ‘Reports’ comes in; one of the new features on Night Zookeeper that we are really excited about. This tool is readily available from your Classroom Dashboard and provides you with data on what your students are including in their writing.

We love creative writing at Night Zookeeper. In fact, we love it so much we made an entire website to inspire children to produce creative writing! But sometimes a teacher just needs some exciting prompts to get their student’s imaginations flowing and writing. That’s why we have made this list of 25 creative writing prompts that will get your children inspired and writing in no time!

Can gamification improve writing? Yes of course! You might expect us to say that, as the creators of nightzookeeper.com, a website that uses elements of gamification to inspire and motivate children to write.

Throughout March, we asked students to write about their favourite subject, topic, or interest that they were incredibly passionate about.

Throughout April, students have the opportunity to write a report and/or story that has the chance to be published in the third Night Zookeeper book, The Penguins of Igloo City.