Photo
Photograph their hands. Just their hands.
The library
Every question Vellum asks
All 133 of them, free to read, free to use, and free inside the app forever. Whether you want questions to ask your 4 year old, a reason to record their voice, or one small thing to go and do tonight, it's on this page. Take them and use them in a notebook if you'd rather — that's fine. The app just remembers so you don't have to.
Nothing here is metered. Some apps in this category charge you per question per day; that's the thing worth not doing. Pricing is here if you want to see where the line actually is.
Question
What did they say this week that you want to remember exactly?
Activity
Never let go of the hug first today. Let them be the one to pull away.
Photo
Get down to their eye level and take the photo from there.
Voice
Record them telling you a story. Any story. Don't correct a single word.
Video
Film them telling you about their day. Don't prompt them.
Question
What is your kid obsessed with right now?
Photo
Photograph their shoes by the door.
Activity
Get on the floor for ten minutes. That's the whole mission.
Letter
Write them something about money that you wish someone had told you at nineteen.
Photo
Take a picture of what they built today, however unimpressive.
Question
What does your kid call you? Write down every version.
Activity
Carry them when asked, even though they can walk fine.
Photo
Photograph the mess they made. Don't clean it up first.
Question
What's the bedtime routine right now, step by step?
Voice
Record them singing. Whatever they are singing.
Video
Ask them ten questions about someone else in the family and film the answers. Don't correct anything.
Photo
Take a photo of them sleeping.
Activity
Use their oldest nickname out loud today, while they do still answer to it.
Question
What food is your kid refusing this week?
Photo
Photograph their drawing or their handwriting, exactly as it is.
Measurement
Measure their height and weight. Photograph them against the same wall, same spot as last time.
Photo
Take a picture of them with whoever they are most attached to right now.
Activity
Let them help with something, even though it triples the time.
Question
What did they do today that annoyed you and will be funny in ten years?
Letter
Write them a letter about exactly who they are right now. They won't be this person next year.
Photo
Photograph their lunch, arranged the way they arranged it.
Voice
Record them counting as high as they can go.
Video
Film them doing the thing they are currently best at.
Question
Who is their best friend right now, and what do they do together?
Activity
Don't rush lights-out tonight. Stay an extra ten minutes.
Photo
Take a photo of them doing the thing they do every single day.
Photo
Photograph their face mid-laugh. Burst mode. Take twenty, keep one.
Question
What word does your kid mispronounce that you don't want to correct?
Activity
Say yes to the next thing you'd normally say no to.
Photo
Take a picture of them in the same spot you photographed them a year ago.
Question
What is your kid afraid of right now?
Photo
Photograph what they are wearing today, head to toe. In ten years this is a costume.
Voice
Record them saying the alphabet.
Video
Record thirty seconds of them just playing. No talking to the camera.
Activity
Let them choose dinner. Entirely.
Letter
Write down what you were afraid of before they were born, and what actually happened.
Photo
Take a photo of the two of you. You're in almost none of them.
Question
What did they teach themself this month?
Photo
Photograph their favorite toy alone, like a portrait.
Activity
Ask them a question and let the silence sit until the answer comes.
Question
Describe their laugh.
Photo
Take a picture of them outside doing nothing in particular.
Voice
Record them saying their own full name.
Video
Film them explaining how something works.
Activity
Go outside with them with no plan and no phone.
Question
What's their answer to "what do you want to be when you grow up" — this week's version?
Photo
Take a photo of them with their grandparents.
Photo
Photograph them next to something for scale — a doorway, the dog, your hand.
Question
What song is stuck in the house right now?
Activity
Apologize to them for something. Out loud.
Photo
Photograph their hair first thing in the morning, before anyone fixes it.
Letter
Write them about a mistake you made that they'll probably make too.
Question
What's the last thing they asked that you couldn't answer?
Photo
Take a photo of what they chose to wear when nobody helped.
Voice
Record them describing you.
Video
Record them running toward you.
Activity
Let them win, and don't tell them you did.
Photo
Photograph the bottom of their feet after a day outside.
Question
What's the first thing they do in the morning?
Photo
Take a picture of their hands working a zip, a button, or a spoon.
Activity
Tell them one specific thing you admire about them. Not "good job."
Measurement
Take the same photo you took last month — same chair, same angle.
Question
What are you worried about with them right now?
Photo
Photograph where they fell asleep that was not a bed.
Activity
Do nothing next to them for fifteen minutes.
Voice
Record two minutes of dinner. Don't announce it. Just the room.
Video
Film the bedtime routine start to finish, one take.
Photo
Photograph the book they have asked for every night this week.
Question
What did you get wrong as a parent this week? Write it honestly — they'll need to know you were human.
Letter
Write down the story of the day they were born, in as much detail as you can still remember.
Photo
Photograph their plate at the end of dinner, exactly as they left it.
Activity
Ask them to teach you something.
Question
What does their room look like right now? Describe the mess.
Photo
Take a picture of them from behind, walking away from you.
Photo
Photograph the thing they carried around all day.
Question
What's their favorite thing to do with someone who isn't you?
Activity
Put your phone in another room for the whole evening.
Voice
Record them reading a page out loud.
Video
Ask them what they'd say to themself at eighteen. Film it.
Photo
Take a photo of their face while they are concentrating.
Question
What's a rule in your house they'd be surprised to learn isn't universal?
Activity
Take them on a solo date and let them pick everything — where you go, what you eat, what you do.
Photo
Photograph what they left on the stairs.
Question
What did they cry about today?
Photo
Take a photo of the chair that is always theirs, empty.
Letter
Write them something about someone in their family that they'd never think to ask about.
Activity
Make cookies together this week. Photograph the mess, not the cookies.
Voice
Record them telling a joke.
Video
Film them eating something for the first time.
Photo
Photograph their shoes on the wrong feet.
Question
What's the last thing they were proud of themself for?
Photo
Take a photo of what they built and then knocked down.
Activity
Build something with them that takes more than one sitting.
Question
What toy has your kid not put down this month?
Photo
Photograph them asleep in the car.
Photo
Take a picture of their pockets emptied out.
Activity
Go somewhere neither of you has been before.
Question
What does your kid smell like right now?
Voice
Record them talking about their best friend.
Video
Record them dancing to whatever's playing.
Photo
Take a photo of them eating something they said they hated.
Letter
Write down what you hope stays with them from being four years old.
Question
Who does your kid look like today?
Activity
Spend an afternoon following only their suggestions.
Photo
Photograph their name in their own handwriting.
Measurement
Trace their hand on paper and photograph it.
Photo
Take a photo of them helping with something they are too small for.
Question
What phrase has your kid picked up from you that you wish they hadn't?
Activity
Cook something from your own childhood and tell them where it came from.
Photo
Photograph the spot they do most of their playing in, with nobody in the frame.
Voice
Record them answering "what's the best thing that happened today?"
Video
Film them on the last day of the school year.
Question
What's the thing they do that nobody else would notice?
Photo
Photograph them in the first snow.
Activity
Show them where you grew up — go there, or go through the photos.
Question
What did the two of you argue about?
Photo
Take a photo of them on the first day of school.
Letter
Write them what you'd want them to know if you weren't around to say it.
Activity
Ask them to pick three songs and play them loud in the kitchen.
Photo
Photograph whatever they made out of leaves, pumpkins, or mud this month.
Question
How does your kid say goodbye?
Voice
Record them making up a song about nothing.
Video
Interview them with ten questions about someone else in the family and film the whole thing.
Photo
Take a photo of what summer looks like for them this year.
Activity
Let them plan and "cook" one meal, whatever that means at their age.
Question
What's changed about them in the last three months?
Photo
Go back through your camera roll to this month last year and log three photos you never wrote down.
Nothing matches that.
The same questions to ask your 4 year old still work at nine
Age bands are a starting filter, not a rule. “What are they pretending to be this week?” is as good at nine as at four — the answer just grows up with them, which is the point of asking it more than once.
How to use these without the app
Genuinely: take them. Put one in your calendar for 7am. Answer it in your notes app, or on paper, or in the back of whatever notebook is nearest. Two sentences is plenty, and the entry you actually write beats the essay you meant to write.
Three things make an answer survive twenty years, and none of them need software: the date, their age, and the question you were answering. Write those down with it. That third one is the one everybody skips, and it's the one that turns a note into something findable.
Why they're written like this
Every prompt asks for one concrete, observable thing. Not “capture a special moment” — an assignment like that is why keepsake books die on page seven. “What word do they mispronounce that you don't want to correct?” is answerable in nine seconds because there is exactly one right answer and you already know it.
They're also written to be read by any family. The bodies store pronoun tokens and the name as placeholders, and each one is filled in the moment before you read it — so the app says her to a family with a daughter and them to a family that hasn't said. On this page there's no child to ask, so they render neutrally.
Stored
What word does {name} mispronounce that you don't want to correct?
Read
What word does Maya mispronounce that you don't want to correct?
One of these, tomorrow morning
The waitlist isn't an announcement list. It's one prompt a day, by email, starting tomorrow — the same ones on this page. Answer them anywhere. When Vellum opens, backdating means nothing you wrote in a notebook is wasted.
Get tomorrow's prompt
One a day, by email. A note when it opens and when the price goes live. Nothing else.