20 Ways to Lively Up Your Novel Study

I know I’m late in the game, but you guys already know my love-hate relationship with technology.

So I actually took the little kids to the Apple Store last week for a field-trip on how to use iMovie. Why did I just learn about the red button for video and the white button for photos??? Ugh, tell me I’m not the only one that didn’t know!!!

Anyway, this trip, coupled with my assignment for class to put tech into all lesson plans, had me thinking. They can make little movie trailers for the books we read. Plus, it was soooooo intuitive to them to just start videoing, right there in the darn store, and I was still marveling at how airdrop works! Needless to say, I’ll be going back without them for workshops on my own devices, but it might be easy to marry the tech with the learning, my way, of course.

I’ve created a little calendar of the activities that I came up with, and they can really be used with any novel and a basic Mac or iPad. Little or no prep on the teacher’s part, and if i can actually pull it off, i’ll create a website for teachers to find other teachers reading the same books, so the kiddo’s can kinda chat to others about it, on a safe kinda facebook environment.

In the meantime, like don’t be holding your breath for that magnificent dream of a site! i’ve listed them here with a little description and a link to the reading calendar for the month. i’m thinking this is good for grades 3 to 6, and it will have to be scaled back a bit for the littles, but they did give me the idea, so i’m going to try a few of the activities with them!

1) Make a Glossary for this book

2) Interview a character in the book

3) Podcast an ad for the Book

4) Skype with another class reading the book

5) Write a 6-7 sentence summary per chapter

6) Design a tool to to make life easier for one of the characters

7) dear diary - write a diary entry as one of the characters

8) paint a picture of the setting in the novel

9) write the next chapter

10) create a social media page for one of the characters

11) write a letter to one of the characters in the novel

12) design a CD cover if this was a soundtrack

13) diagram the plot in the novel

14) watch the movie of find a movie that is similar to the book

15) rewrite the ending of the novel

16) write 5 comprehension questions about the book

4 Final Projects (if you are into that kinda thing)

17) video a scene in the book, props and all

18) make a book trailer in iMovie

19) write a song for the book

20) create a playlist of songs that would go along with the novel

Grab the editable template here. I used Chike and the River, but you can change it to match what your class or kiddos are reading! Homeschool friendly, as I did these activities with my 7 and 10 year old, and they absolutely loved it! Also, check out my 150 response to reading prompts.

Oh man, just thought of another one: take a field-trip to a restaurant in the story (or one from that country) and order a typical dish. If we could find a Nigerian restaurant in Miami, we would order…Egusi soup or something.