Make your opinion writing lessons more interesting by adding these opinion writing prompts and activities! They're a great way to help your students share their preferences and refine their writing skills at the same time.
Opinion writing is such a fun part of primary school! It's a great way to learn more about your students' own lives, and the personal nature of the questions can really get their creative juices going. Students are likely to have strong opinions about their preferences and beliefs, which makes it easy for them to express their points of view. Even the most reluctant writers tend to get excited about sharing their own opinions and personal experiences.
Like any writing skill, this takes practice. Students need to learn what opinions are (and what they are not) and how to back up their personal views with evidence or justifications.
This process takes time, explicit instruction, and lots of practice, but I have a bunch of resources to help!
Best Opinion Writing Prompts for Kids
I've developed a variety of tools to help you simplify your writing lessons and make these topics and skills as easy to learn as possible.
Persuasive Writing Powerpoint Presentations
First, make sure you start with my Persuasive Writing Slideshow!
It's packed full of information to help teach your students about opinion writing in a deep and meaningful way. It has dozens of questions to spark conversation and learn about your students' opinions regarding various topics, but it also contains activities related to several mentor texts, class surveys, and graphic organisers to organise your persuasive writing.
You might also like to explore some Would You Rather questions with your students- kids LOVE answering these, and they're a great way to get kids thinking about their opinions and explaining their reasoning.
These matching templates make a great consolidation activity or literacy rotation activity.
Persuasive Writing Bundle
For even more resources, take a look at my Persuasive Writing Activities & Resources. They are all completely printable, so you can incorporate them into your daily lesson plans right away! There are even more activities related to the mentor texts from the slideshow, including graphic organisers and booklets, to help your students practise their skills in a hands-on way.
Here are just a few of my favourite opinion writing activities and mentor texts.
1. The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers
Get the matching activities here.
2. Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus by Mo Willems
Get the the matching activities here.
3. What Pet Should I Get? by Dr Seuss
Get the matching activities here.
4. I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff
Get the matching activities here.
5. A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea by Michael Ian Black
Get the matching activities here.
6. Daisy: Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray
Get the matching activities here.
Other great mentor texts for opinion writing include:
- Hey, Little Ant by Hannah Hoose - you can find my matching activities here.
- Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
These resources are all available on The Hive, our digital teacher platform which is loaded with thousands of evidence-based resources, videos, and materials to help you spend more time teaching and less time searching for the right lesson activities!
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Teaching opinion writing in elementary school
It will take years of instruction before students are fully prepared to write opinion essays, but you can set them up for success by teaching these specific concepts.
State a preference
I like to ask a lot of questions about my students' preferences from the first day of school. Not only does this help them get to know each other, but the sentence starters or questions are usually easy to answer. This is also a great way to build community and also have students learn what their own preferences are.
Take it to the next level and ask students what they would do in specific situations. This is more complex than simply stating a preference, but it's a great way to develop critical thinking skills and learn about each other in a meaningful way.
The best way to get students to share their personal experiences and preferences is through a morning journal. I have 101 Free Writing Prompts for Journal Writing, which is such a great resource!
It has 101 different questions about your students' favourite foods and movies, as well as more inquisitive topics that require them to think a little. There is also a free digital version to make it easy to incorporate into your daily routine.
Opinion Writing Sentence Starters
Use sentence starters to help them share their answers out loud and also in writing. Your writing expectations should vary depending on the grade level.
Kindergarten: Students are generally only expected to state their opinions out loud or, with support, write them on paper.
1st and 2nd Grade: Students should be able to state an opinion, offer a reason to support their view, and organise their writing with an introduction and conclusion.
3rd Grade: Students should be able to write organised opinion pieces with several reasons to support their claim.
- My favourite _____ is _____.
- I prefer _____ because _____.
- I would rather _____ because _____.
- I believe that _____ is the best because _____.
- I think _____ because _____.
20 Elementary Opinion Writing Topics
Need some opinion essay topics to add to a lesson right away? These are the perfect topics to spark a conversation or writing assignment.
- What is your favourite colour? School subject? Ice cream? Sports team?
- Which animal makes the best pet?
- Do most kids spend too much time on video games?
- If you could meet one famous person, who would it be? Why?
- Should students wear school uniforms?
- Would you rather be a pop star or an actor?
- Do you prefer sour candies or chocolate?
- What's the scariest animal?
- Do you prefer pizza or tacos?
- Is it better to be brave or smart?
- What's the best thing to do for your birthday?
- What type of music is the best?
- Should we have school 5 days per week or 4?
- Should primary school students have access to social media?
- At what age should kids get phones?
- Which grade has been your favourite so far? Why?
- Which is better: physical education, music, or visual arts?
- Where is the best place to live? Why?
- What do you like the most about our school?
- What is your dream job? Why?
Fact vs opinion
One of the first things students need to learn is the difference between facts and opinions. They tend to catch onto this very quickly since facts are usually visual, observable, or verifiable in some way.
For example, "the dog is brown" can be verified by looking at the dog. "Chocolate ice cream is the most delicious ice cream" cannot be verified. That belief is someone's personal opinion, and it may not be true for other people.
This can become a little confusing at times, since sometimes opinions can feel really true and it's hard to think in shades of grey.
This free fact or opinion sorting activity can help students work through this skill in a hands-on way.
Opinions vs persuasive writing
Although opinions and persuasive writing can look the same, they're not really the same thing.
Opinions are based on someone's personal beliefs or experiences. They don't have to justify or explain their answer; they can simply state their favourite book, colour, food, hobby, etc.
Persuasive writing requires you to persuade or convince someone to think or feel a certain way based on your own unique perspective. It generally requires reasoning, logic, and examples to support a point. This is more sophisticated and must be scaffolded appropriately, especially in the early years.
At the beginning of your writing unit, it's best to teach your students that persuasive writing is a special type of writing, like informational or narrative writing. They should follow specific writing criteria to make sure their argument really works! If you have a writing center, make an anchor chart to list the different types of writing you've taught so far to introduce this new skill!
My Persuasive Writing Activities make this whole process so much easier and accessible. There are dozens of activities that break down these complex skills to make them easy to follow and engaging.
Ultimately, opinion writing is a powerful way to help students learn about each other and themselves, but it's also an important building block for the higher-level writing they'll be expected to do in the upper grades.
If you can teach your students how to support their arguments and offer reasons or evidence for their claims, they'll have a much easier time writing argumentative essays later on. These baby steps can go a long way! Fortunately, it's a really fun skill to teach, and you'll get a chance to learn so much more about your students at the same time!
Take your opinion writing lessons to the next level
In addition to The Hive's one-of-a-kind digital visual timetable and growing library of digital learning tools, you'll love our morning routines and daily discussion prompts, including our Would You Rather questions! They're a great way to promote discussion and opinions each day with your students!
Here's a few examples of what you might discuss with your students:
