Character Summaries

To look at characters in a book, this activity can be tweaked for various levels and analysis of characters (events, character traits, appearances, etc).

Take a large piece of paper and fold each side in so that it meets in the middle.  Choose two characters from the story (the protagonist and antagonist are easy to work with).  On the inside, choose a scene, or the students can choose a scene, in which the two characters interact.

The example below is from fourth graders who read the Roald Dahl book The Twits.  They each drew Mr. and Mrs. Twit on the opposing cover flaps.  On the interior they choose one or two jokes that the Twits played on one another, illustrated, and described them in writing.

Flap books for Verbs

I use flapbooks a lot and they lend themselves to being used for a variety of instruction.

Recently, we worked on irregular (simple) past tense verbs.  The students made flap books with the present tense verb on the front and when the flap is opened, the irregular past tense verb on the inside.

To make a flap book, you fold the piece of paper in half and cut the top layer (like the cover of a book) to the fold, making as many cuts as you need.  You will probably need to model this the first few times you do it.

Finished product