Kids Listen Activity Podcast, Episode 45:
This Week in the Multiverse Presents The Easy Way to Build Your Own Alternate Earth
This special Kids Listen episode of This Week in the Multiverse springboards from a story "Scary Monkeys with Clown Faces" into a lesson on world building writing exercises for kids. Listen to the episode here.
After the episode, do the activity! Learn how to create your own alternate earth with the instructions below.
World Building Made Easy: The Simplicity of World Tweaking
Try these world-building exercises to help make alternate Earths for stories and for fun!
Catch that Cat Gator!
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Mix and match people, places or things to create hybrids that don’t exist on our Earth but just might in another reality.
For instance, get a list of animals and start splicing to get combos like:
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A parakeet squid
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A wooly dodo
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A vulture puppy
You can do the same with people and places. Just mash together names and see what tickles your imagination, be it Caveman Abraham Lincoln or The Taj Ma White House.
Rescue Rome!
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Imagine a historical event, big or small, and think about how it might have turned out differently. Rome never falls. Nuclear power gets discovered in Victorian Times. Skateboarding never gets invented.
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Tease out these changes and see how the world they took place in would be different. Carry out the thought experiment enough steps and you’ll have a brand-spanking new alternate Earth on your hands!
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Check out SGWilson.net for worksheets to help get you thinking!