Science fiction is a popular writing genre with teachers and primary children alike. It allows them to explore exciting topics such as outer space, aliens, time machines, new technology or scientific innovation. Anything can happen in science fiction, giving children the power to let their imagination and creativity go wild. Introducing a science fiction prompt to your class introduces that imagination and creativity into their work helping them to produce writing that's out of this world!
Here are our favourite science fiction writing prompts, ready-made to save you time and encourage your young writers to get imaginative! Each one comes with a story starter, questions, sentence challenges and a grammar/punctuation challenge.
"At first it had been an eye; an enormous, lidless, blue eye, hovering there above the road. A few hours later, another eye had joined it. It was then that people had started to take notice. Passers-by stopped and stared, wide-mouthed, at the mysterious vision that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the night sky. By the middle of the night, the full blue face could be seen. The world was now taking notice. Broadcast on TV screens across the planet, the vision was causing quite a stir. People watched expectantly, glued to their televisions and radios and laptops around the world, waiting for the next part of the puzzle to unravel…"
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"As the cogs began to turn once again, a flicker of light sparked from within. Watching, waiting, anticipating its first move, the rise of the machine was imminent…"
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"They had arrived out of the blue, catching everyone completely unaware. Striding through the vast expanse of ocean as if it were nothing more than a shallow puddle, the robots provided the gathering crowd on the beach with a menacing spectacle. They were enormous! Terrifying! The whole shore shook as one of them crunched a clunky, clumsy leg the size of a giraffe into the sand..."
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"The moment they had feared was finally upon them; the electric storm had arrived. With the world in ruins, they began to board the ship in hope of salvation…"
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"Many years ago, when I was just a boy, we found a mysterious object washed up on the beach. It was a sort of silver-grey colour and looked like a frying pan only much, much larger. My friends and I had huddled together on the beach around the thing, holding our hands up to our faces to shield our eyes from the dazzling sun, talking excitedly about what it could be. Some hours later, after we had all made up wild stories about the origin of our new toy, we dragged the colossal item that was the size of our dining table up to the village. 21 years later, I was taking my own children out for a bike ride when…"
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"“Excuse me, may I see some form of identification please?” The agent sounded extremely serious, and I could see as I approached him the beads of sweat that had formed on his shaved head: a sure sign of the stress caused by the recent developments. After all, it wasn’t everyday that aliens landed! I did as I was told, flashing my badge in front of his eyes. He immediately stood to attention when he saw my name. “I’m sorry,” he asked, “but we have been asking everyone for I.D. ever since it happened.” His tone sounded apologetic. “We’ve completely locked down the entire area. We’ve been waiting for you. What are your orders?” The reality struck me of why I was here: to investigate this mysterious event. My eyes took in the scene around me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before…"
Can your class continue the story?