Today's Classroom Activities :

Characters Can Be Fun Classroom Activities

Characters Alive
Reading/Drama Provide a box of costumes and dress-up clothes. After reading a story or play, encourage your students to go to this collection and pick clothing appropriate to the characters they just read about. What were the clues in the story that lead them to pick these clothes? Do the story characters remind them of real people? In what way?

Character Masks
Language/Art After reading a story or book together, assign students to make character masks. Provide a variety of materials. Then have them wear the masks while being interviewed by other class members about the events of the story. Staying within the character is important and can only be done when you really know the character.

Dialogue Day
Reading/Writing/Art After reading a story together or aloud, have students rewrite the main ideas in dialogue. Then assign each student a character from the story, make a paper plate mask using those characteristics. Have students come forward, wear their masks and speak the character's parts. Has the story come alive? Has it changed? What changed it?