Castle

This castle reading response activity can be used as a group book report project for a novel that the whole class has read together, or as an individual student book report project.

It’s a good idea to use these castle templates for a group project for a unit on Fairy Tales.

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This Castle Book Report Project contains the following writing components:

• Title Information: Book Title, Author, Genre, Name, and Date
• The King's Vocabulary List: Find 5 words that you are unfamiliar with from your story. Write the word on the first line and the definition on the line that is after it. If you are familiar with all of the words from your story, then choose words that interesting and related to the plot or the characters.
• A Crowning Achievement: Think about something special that a character in the book did and write about that event. This character could have been kind or helpful to someone, brave in a dangerous situation, or achieved a special goal.
• The Castle Dungeon: Think about something that a character in the story did that was wrong or a mistake. Describe why this character should be sent to the castle dungeon. If your book does not have an event like this in it, use your imagination and create something that a character has done.
• An Event to Remember: Think about the most important part, or your favorite part, of the story. Describe this part of the story using descriptive adjectives and colorful verbs.
• Setting: The setting is when and where the story takes place.
• Main Character: Write a description about the main character in your book.

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Some of the novels  recommended to work with this activity are:

• The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (Newbery Winner 1987)
• The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
• The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo and Timothy Basil Ering (Newbery Winner 2004)
• The Sword In the Stone by T. H. White
• Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz (Newbery Winner 2008)
• The Knight at Dawn (Magic Tree House, No. 2) by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca
• Haunted Castle on Hallow's Eve (Magic Tree House, 30) by Mary Pope Osborne and Sal Murdocca
• Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I am sure your children will enjoy writing their book reports on these templates. They can write their name and form on each of the flags.

Cell phone

Your students will be enthusiastic to write text messages about the books that they have read with these fun cell phone templates.

These cell phone shaped graphic organizers will provide you with all of the teaching resources that you need for your students to write about the conflict and resolution of the story, as well as their favorite parts of their books.

When this fun book report project is completed, it is a two sided display that is perfect for hanging from the ceiling or displaying on a window so that both sides of the cell phone can be seen.

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These are the aspects your students should consider:

         Book Information: Title, Author, and Genre

• Incoming Text Message: Conflict of the Story ( Students pretend that the main character in the book has just sent them a text message telling them about the conflict that he or she is facing in the story.)
• Incoming Photograph: Students draw a picture from the story.
• ________ (main character's name) just called to tell me: Resolution of the Story (Students pretend that the main character of the book just called to tell them how the problem in the book was resolved.)
• Calling a Friend: Students pretend that they are calling a friend to recommend that he or she should read this book. They describe their favorite part of the story and why they are recommending that afriend should read this book.

This set includes 4 templates that assemble into the shape of a 2 sided cell phone. There is an area on the front of the phone for students to draw and color a picture of their favorite part of the book

For this assignment, allow your students to write their responses as they would if they were text messaging their friends. Children these days have an abundance of abbreviations and symbols that they use when they write text messages to their friends. Normallyyou would not allow  students  to use U(you), &(and), and other abbreviations (:o) and LOL) in their writing, but for this activity, it is appropriate.

Students really enjoy being able to write their text messages using the abbreviations and symbols that they commonly use in this form of communication. For some of the abbreviations that they use, you might need to have them "translated" for you as I am sure you probably will not know all of them.

 

Did you like the idea? I hope so!

Lara

Movie Camera Book Report KS3

This movie camera shaped reading response project will provide you with all of the teaching resources that you need for your students to write about adaptations that they have to make to their books in order to make a film version of the novel. They have to think about the plot of their book when they write about their movie's film location, special effects, stunts, props, costumes, lead actor or actress, and the supporting cast.

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This movie camera book report set is divided into 8 writing sections:

• Adaptations That I Would Make to the Book as the Director: movie camera left main template
• Film Location, Special Effects, and Stunts: movie camera right main template
• Film Title and Lead Actor/Actress: movie camera left main template small box
• Supporting Cast: movie camera left main template small box
• Props: movie camera right main template small box
• Camera Stand: Favorite Part of the Book and Favorite Part of the Movie that the student created.
• Camera Stand: Title of Book, Author, Genre, and Student Name

 Students write the title, author and genre of the book. Then, they write their favorite part of the book and their favorite part of their movie. This title information and the two short written responses are written in a movie camera stand template . Next, students write the adaptations that they would make to the book as the director of their movie. After that, students write about their movie's film location, special effects, and stunts.  Finally, students write their movie's title, lead actor/actress, and the supporting cast.

You can have a cinema day. If you want to work even deeper, you can ask your students to prepare a short film to advertise the “movie”, based on their written book report.

I hope you like this idea! Have a great day!

Lara

Cause and Effect Tree

Authors often rely on the cause and effect text structure to explain, show order, change character behavior, and create plot. Since cause and effect may be a difficult concept for your students to understand, or they may not have been taught this literary element before, you may want to model and teach this concept before you assign this project to your students.

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It would be a good idea to read aloud a book and then use that book as an example to teach cause and effect relationships to your students.

Below is a list of books that you could use that contain cause and effect relationships in them. This list only contains short picture book titles because it would likely take too long to read aloud a longer book to your students to use as a teaching example.

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
• The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears by Verna Aardema
• Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
• The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble
• Chicken Little by Steven Kellog
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
• Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood

 

A good strategy is to teach the three types of cause and effect relationships:

• Stated: Stated cause and effect relationships are clearly stated in the text and often involve signal words.
• Unstated: Unstated relationships require that students make an inference.
• Sequential: In sequential cause and effect relationships, effects may be part of a chain in which one effect goes on to cause a second effect, and so on.

In your examples that you are modeling to your students, try to find cause and effect relationships that are easy to identify because they are in the same sentence or use signal words to identify them.

Then, explain to your students that many times cause and effect relationships in stories do not occur in the same sentence and are not associated with signal words. Try to find cause and effect examples from the story that you read to your students that do not occur in the same sentence and that do not contain signal clues.

 

For this project, students write the causes in the tree's branches and the effects in the tree's leaves.

Leave an area for students to draw a picture of a cause and effect on the trunk.

• Book Information: Title, Author, Genre, and Name
• 6 Cause Branches
• 6 Large Effect Leaves
• 1 Trunk
•  Title oval template and a drawing area for a cause and effect.

12 Small Leaves for decoartion

 

Here are examples on how to design the tree. Of course this is a guide. If you have better ideas, please go ahead!

You can adapt the shape of the leaves. There are many templates on the internet. These oval ones are the easiest to cut, though.

I hope you like this project! I enjoyed sharing it with you 

Let me know how it worked for you. Your comments and ideas are welcome.

Caterpillars and butterflies

This book report focuses on colorful writing. First, students have to find examples of the author using colorful verbs and adjectives in their book. Then, they have to write a colorful description of the main character and explain why the plot of this book is colorful and interesting. Traditionally, requiring students to find examples of verbs and adjectives in a book is a task that most students find quite boring. Before students start this task, they are given example sentences of descriptive verbs and adjectives on their first draft worksheets.

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This Caterpillar Book Report Project is divided into four writing sections:

• Section 1 - Colorful Verbs: Students find examples of sentences that contain colorful verbs in them.
• Section 2 - Colorful Adjectives: Students find examples of sentences that contain colorful adjectives in them.

             Section 3 - Colorful Character: Students write a description for the main character and try to use colorful adjectives and verbs in their writing.

• Section 4 - Colorful Plot: Students explain why the plot of this book is colorful (interesting) and why they recommend that other students read this book.
• Caterpillar Head and Feet: Title of book, author, genre, student name, and date.

These first draft worksheets contain example sentences using colorful verbs and adjectives for the students to read before they try to find examples of these parts of speech in their own book.  These ones are based on the book THE TWITTS, by Roald Dahl.

Here is a set of templates to assemble the caterpillar. Of course, you can adapt each part of the caterpillar according to what you want your students to work on. These templates can be adapted as follows:

Head: the same –> TITLE / first circle: –> setting and characters / second circle:—> Plot / third circle: :—> resolution and conclusion  and the last body part would be for the illustration.

These caterpillar and butterfly book report projects are identical
to each other in all of the written responses. The only difference
is the shape of the butterfly and caterpillar templates.
These identical projects will look great displayed together in a spring display!

The Butterfly book report has exactly the same content, only the shape and the assembling instructions are different.( see above)

I hope you enjoy these two projects! Send pictures if you use them in your class! I hope you find this helpful and inspiring.

Wanted!

This wanted poster book report project is divided into the following creative writing sections:

• Physical Description: Height, weight, eyes, hair, and distinguishing features
• Last Seen: Describe where the character was when he/she was last seen by another person. What was the character doing? What was the character wearing?
• Wanted For: Think of something that your character has done and why he/she is wanted by the police. You can make the crime related to something that has happened in the book, or you can make up something new that the character has done. Write a detailed narrative describing the actions that happened and what made the character commit this crime. Try to use interesting adjectives and colorful verbs in your narrative.
• Novel Summary: Write a short summary about the plot of this book.
• Novel Description: Title, author, and genre
• Photograph: Drawing of the character.

1. Students fill in the following information about their books:title, author, genre, character's name, and reward amount.

2. Next, students write a physical description of the character that includes the character's height, weight, eye color, hair color, and distinguishing features.

3. Students write why the main character is wanted by the police, the action that happened, and what caused the character to commit this crime.

4. Students write where the character was last seen and a summary of the story.

The final draft can be something like this ( see below). You just print and glue both parts to create the final WANTED poster.

 I hope that your students enjoy creating  these WANTED posters!

Characters come to life!

 Each student creates life-size "portraits" of one of the characters from a book just read. The portrait should include a written piece that tells about the character. The piece might also include information about events, traits, or conflicts in the book that involve that character.

You can have a special day and combine this project with  a Prove It in Five Minutes class.  This is the idea:

Each student gives a 2-minute oral presentation in which he or she shares information about a book's plot and characters. The student closes the presentation by offering an opinion and recommendation about the book. Then students in the audience have 150 seconds to question the presenter about the book.  Hang the students' portraits in a class gallery at the end of the class. You may like to hang  the best  portraits around different parts of the school, or around the library.

On the news book report

Each student creates the front page of a newspaper that tells about events and characters in a book just read. This designs is very good to use with biographies, for example.

The  newspaper page might include weather reports, an editorial or editorial cartoon, ads, etc. The title of the newspaper should be something appropriate to the book.

This is a good project for reading buddies.

 

Inside the report, the student can turn  part of it, into a comic book, complete with comic-style illustrations and dialogue bubbles. Or they can use the comic strip design as the book  report itself.

Make a Sandwich after reading!

 

Let me share an idea that incorporates some of the basic ingredients of a good book report and sandwiches in a lot more fun!

 

First,  draw slices of ham, tomato, and Swiss cheese; lettuce leaves; a layer of mayonnaise, and a couple of slices of bread. If you are not good at drawing, you can ask a friend for help, or find good images on the internet.

Then photocopy  the drawings onto appropriately colored sheets of paper -- ham on pink, tomato on red, Swiss cheese on yellow, etc. The sheets serve as the ingredients for  students' book report sandwiches.

• On the top slice of bread, each student writes  the title and the author of the book the student has just finished reading.
• On the lettuce, the student writes a brief summary of the book.
• The student writes about the main character on the tomato slice.
• On the mayonnaise, the student describes the book's setting.
• The student shares the book's climax on the Swiss cheese.
• On the ham slice, the student describes the plot.
• On the bottom piece of bread, the student draws a favorite scene from the story.

Students staple together their sandwich layers, then slap their concoctions up on a bulletin board headlined "We're Hungry for Good Books!"

The project  makes out of what can be a pretty hum-drum activity. Even better, the bulletin board serves as a menu for students who are  ravenous for a good read. All they have to do is grab a sandwich to learn whether a particular book might satisfy their appetites!

You can put a good bulletin board in the school’s library to share these sandwiches!

If you are adventurous, you can make a 3D sandwich like this one, replacing the slices of bread templates for  crampled newspaper in the shape of a hamburger bread, covered with a piece of suitable cloth :

On the contrary, if you want an easier version of this activity,  here is an example:

 

I hope you like this idea and put it into practice.