These 33 January writing prompts made just for you and your elementary school aged students are based on the National Days calendar. January is the perfect time to start a daily writing practice in your classroom that’s fast, fun, and easy to implement.
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“Lemon polish reminds me of Christmas,” a co-worker once told me.
“Lemon polish?” I wondered aloud. “Why not pine boughs or gingerbread baking?”
She explained. “Every year, between Christmas and New Year, my mom dove into cleaning our house from top to bottom. Once she’d put away the ornaments, swept the floors and decluttered, she’d polish all the furniture with lemon oil. Our house had to be spotless and ready for the New Year.”
New year, with new beginnings, and out with the old, is how the saying goes. This is the motto in so many cultures around the world. In China, Japan, Mexico, and Iran, people traditionally clean their homes and sweep out the dust to make room for good luck, prosperity, and happiness to come in the New Year.
How about you? Do you follow this house cleaning tradition?
Once you’re done cleaning, here are some sparkling and shiny writing prompts to fill the month of January with wonderful new ideas, none of which have to do with lemon polish.
January is National Soup Month
Warm, delicious, soup is the ubiquitous comfort food in the winter. I could write about soup for days. Investigate different types of soup with your students.
- Chicken soup
- Tomato soup
- Pasta e fagioli
- Tortilla soup
- Creamy broccoli soup
- Vegetable soup
- This list could go on and on.
Authentic experiences lead to better writing and comprehension. So for this monthly prompt, why not read a multi-cultural story about soup, and then have a soup party with your students?
One of my favorite books to use this time of year is The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin. (This is NOT an affiliate link, it’s a link to her publisher’s page for the book.)
In this story, (which I suspect is semi-autobiographical), the author shares how other people in her neighborhood have beautiful gardens with flowers. She resents the fact that her mother’s garden only has ugly vegetables. That is, until the end, when she discovers how food creates bonds with her neighbors as they all share soup made from the ugly vegetables.
After reading, I would bring in a crockpot and we’d make a pot of vegetable soup. The students measured and placed it all in the crockpot. (Math, anyone?) Then we all sat and TRIED to study while smelling our yummy lunch simmering away.
January is National Hobby Month
This is a fantastic opportunity to research and learn about different types of hobbies people have. From coin collecting to rock collecting, to painting, to skateboarding, and anything else your students come up with, you can have some great discussions around hobbies. Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover a new hobby you want to try!
To get started with these writing prompts, you may want to download the January Daily Writing Prompts Journal.
January Writing Prompts Based on the National Days
The national days calendars have a plethora of ideas for writing. They’re include just about any topic you might be interested in, so they’re a perfect launching pad for cross-curricular writing. You can write about science, geography, biographies, food, books, or gazillions of other things.
Some aren’t appropriate for school, such as National Margarita Day, (Hello!) I did the heavy lifting and sifting through the topics for you, to find the ones that work best for upper elementary students. Read on to see some of the January prompts divided into categories and see the wide variety of topics to write about.
Head to my store to find escape rooms for World Braille Day and Morse Code Day, as well as a complete handwriting curriculum.Animals to Write About
The January writing prompts have days dedicated to birds, cats, eagles, penguins, squirrels and dragons.
Wait! Dragons?
Yes, there’s a day for that too!
It’s fun to start a morning discussion about the day’s topic. Your class discussion leads to more profound writing once the students have recalled their background knowledge and possibly learned some new tidbits.
Science Topics for Writing
- January 8 is Earth’s Rotation Day. You can start a study of the tilt and rotation of the Earth and how it affects seasons and lengths of days with the website mentioned in this writing prompt.
- January 18 is Kid Inventor’s Day. This is a wonderful day to start a new STEM project based on an invention to solve a problem. If you want to go deeper into this topic, my friend at Happy Hive Homeschooling has a packet with biographies and activities of six different inventors under the age of eighteen.
- January 19 is Popcorn Day. Not only can you enjoy some popcorn with your students, you can begin teaching about chemical reactions with this delectable treat. Or you could go down the history trail and learn about how and why popcorn was first made. Did you know there are 17 words for popcorn in Spanish? I’m sticking with palomitas! If you click on the image, you’ll find popping ideas to teach science and history with popcorn.
Geography and Social Studies
- January 1 is Ellis Island Day, a perfect day to learn about how and why people immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island. My maternal ancestors came through Ellis Island, and their name was changed from a German spelling and pronunciation to a more “American” one. In spite of that happening to so many families, the hope of liberty and freedom wove a strong thread through many of these people’s stories.
- January 7 is Old Rock Day. This day is an homage to the great rock in Australia known as Uluru. It’s impressive how it rises red and strong out of a flat desert plain.
- January 26 is Australia Day. There’s so much to discover about this continent and country. Have you heard of the School of the Air that serves the Outback? It’s so interesting!
- January 27 is National Geographic Day. Kids love the National Geographic for Kids website. Adults do too. There are so many things to discover there, you might want to make it a go-to website for your teaching.
Writing About People and Biographies
- As you know, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated each January. You could easily turn this into a week of reading, writing, and projects.
- January 4 is World Braille Day. I was obsessed with learning about Louis Braille and Helen Keller when I was young. You could add a walk around the school with your students and point out braille signs along the way, such as those on plaques or next to the room numbers. I created a World of Braille Escape Room for upper elementary. Students learn about Louis Braille and Helen Keller, and decipher a message in Braille.
- Then we have Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day. You could teach how and when Samuel Morse invented this code, what it was used for, and why we no longer use Morse Code. What elementary school-aged kid wants to learn how to write their name in code? Um, ALL of them! You can introduce it to your students with this Morse Code Escape Room.
Would you like to watch a video showing the Morse Code symbols and sounds?
This will get your students engaged in the subject before they do their daily writing. Maybe they’ll even write their answers in Morse Code too, so keep that chart handy.
Just for Fun Days (Don’t we all need a little fun in our lives?)
- January includes Make Your Dream Come True Day, and with this writing prompt, the students will learn about Walt Disney. He created a worldwide entertainment empire that started with just a dream.
More just for fun topics include:
- International Kite Day (I love this day because some of my favorite memories with my dad were when we flew kites together. Our school had an annual kite day, too.)
- National Hot Tea Day (I drink tea all day long. My students knew this and I received gifts of tea every holiday. Do you drink tea?)
- National Hat Day (I’m not super big on hats, but I do have a gray felt hat that makes me feel like Diane Keaton when I wear it.)
- Appreciate a Dragon Day (I appreciate the Chinese New Year Dragons.)
- National Puzzle Day (What’s your favorite puzzle? Let me know in the comments. Mine are crosswords.)
- National Kazoo Day (This always reminds me of high school football games where everyone had kazoos to play the fight song!)
- National Handwriting Day is on January 23rd. (This almost lost art is making a comeback and that’s making me happy. I love cursive so much, that I created a year-long curriculum to teach cursive handwriting.)
However you choose to use this calendar of January writing prompts, my intention is to make learning fun for your students and to help them learn to love writing every day. The following image will give you an overview of what’s included in this January Daily Writing Prompts Journal.
More January Holidays and Activities
As you may already know, Happy Hive Homeschooling and I have teamed up to bring you the best of the best holidays and activities. There are far more than just 33. Here are some super interesting days with great activities from the HHH website.
- January 1 is Apple Gifting Day Why apples? You can read her post to find out about more giving traditions you might not have heard about.
- January 2 is 55 MPH Speed Limit Day. You can use this day to learn about traffic laws and road signs. Even better, have your kids do some calculations related to gasoline consumption at different speeds and distances.
- January 3 is Toss Your Fruitcake Day, and no, this isn’t a euphemism! This has to be one of the most fun sounding holidays for the winter! Read about how it’s done and download the activity packet (which includes a fruitcake target.)
- Since National Handwriting Day is January 23rd, after your students finish their daily writing, you can give them some extra cursive practice with any of the alliterative pages in my Cursive Handwriting resource.
Save This Pin
There are so many more days to celebrate. I created a monthly writing journal for each month of the year based on the national days. If you want to save this post so you can come back to it again, just save the pin to your Pinterest board.
Happy New Year!
Lemon polish is optional.
