SHARON’S BLOG
Is it too early to dream about the beach? I think not!
This week’s fun prompts are beach themed and are great for your 5th – 12th graders.
The first set of prompts is from a recent news article that caught my imagination, and the second is from a goofy song by Phil Harris recorded in 1950. Well, maybe it wasn’t so goofy. It became so popular that it hit #1 on the Billboard charts soon after he released it.
Ready? Dive in!
By the Beach Prompts
Message in a Bottle
You’re walking along the beach and find a bottle with a message in it. What could it possibly say?
It turns out that the message is 132 years old, which makes it a good thing that the message wasn’t something like “Help!”
German ships were conducting experiments to map ocean currents, and this gin bottle was one of the original ones thrown overboard near the Indian Ocean—600 miles from where it was found—in 1886. The message is basically this: “Write the coordinates of where you found this and the date and send it back,” according to The Guardian.
Now it’s your turn: Choose from one of the following prompts. Or make up your own related to a message in a bottle.
1. You’ve found a message in a bottle. Where did you find it? What did the message say? What did you do with it? Either write a story about it or write a paragraph or two about your conjectures.
2. You are writing a message. Where will you put it? How will you get it to someone? What is the message? Either write a story about it or write a few paragraphs about your ideas.
3. In the last three years on your birthday, you’ve sent a message in a bottle, hoping each will be read by the same stranger. What are your three messages?
4. You are making something you want to last for 132 years. What is it? Explain.
5. You find a message in a bottle and open it up. It turns out that you had written it when you were much younger, and now you are thirty years old. What did your younger self write? What does your thirty-year-old self think of it?
6. What might be a random way to send a message to someone other than a message in a bottle? What message would you send using this method?
*****
The Thing
You’re walking along the beach and find a wooden box. Inside the wooden box is . . . well, I can’t tell you. You’ll have to listen to this song sung by Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo in Disney’s The Jungle Book.
Now it’s your turn: Choose from one of the following prompts. Or make up your own prompt about finding something of interest on the beach.
1. What did Phil Harris find in the wooden box in the bay? Write your ideas.
2. Compare Phil Harris’s find to Pandora and her box in ancient Greek mythology. How is it different? How is it the same? 
3. Write the lyrics to a song in which you find something. Use the lyrics to tell the story of your find. What do you find? What happens next?
4. Did you ever carry or bring something into the house and someone said, “Get out of here with that thing”? Or were you ever present when that happened to someone? Write the story (personal narrative).
Enjoy some poetry prompts here. >>
Do you love Narnia or Middle Earth? >>
Yours for more vibrant writing and literature experiences,
