Extension Activities Summary based on http://www.litcircles.org/Overview/overview.html

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Extension Activities Summary based on
http//www.litcircles.org/Overview/overview.html
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Projects ABC Book

• Directions Create an alphabet book that focuses
  on key events, characters, ideas, and information
  from your book. Include an illustration on each
  page as well as one to two sentences explaining
  each letter of the alphabet.  For a whole-class
  ABC book, each student can be given a letter of
  the alphabet and asked to find a word using that
  letter that is important in the book.     In the
  example below, the letter is C
• and the book, Dear Mr. Henshaw by
• Beverly Cleary.  The student selected the
• word, "creative" to describe the main
• character's solution to getting his lunch
• stolen repeatedly.   At the bottom of the
• page, the student selected a significant
• quote from the book using that word,
• and on the right side, wrote a short
• explanation of why that quote was important in
  the story.
• Teacher Lori Scobie, 4th grade, North City
  Elementary, Shoreline, Washington.

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Project Accordian Book

• Directions Choose five to seven significant
  scenes from your book. Make an illustrated
  accordion-shaped book that reveals the sequence
  of your book's storyline. Include some written
  descriptions, such as What's happening in the
  scene? Why is this scene important to you?

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Project CD Cover

• Directions  Design the front and the back cover
  for a CD to capture the theme or spirit of your
  book. Be sure the name of the book, plus the
  title of the hit single, appears on the front
  cover along with an appealing sketch or design.
  On the back, list the other songs from the CD,
  making sure they relate to the book and to the
  characters' experiences. Adaptation Write
  lyrics to the hit single.     The CD covers
  below include students' songs based on Julie of
  the Wolves by Jean Craighead George and Island of
  the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Teacher
  Kristin McNabb, 5th grade, St. Joseph School,
  Seattle, Washington.

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Project Character Bookmark

• Directions Create a bookmark featuring either
  your favorite character or the character you
  consider to be most significant in your book. Be
  sure to include the book title and author as well
  as the character's name and "portrait" or
  illustration. On the back of the bookmark,
  describe your character and explain why he or she
  is important in your book and how you feel about
  this character.

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Project Collage

• Directions Using magazine photos, create a
  collage of images that symbolize important ideas,
  events, or themes in your book. On the back,
  explain what each image symbolizes and how it
  draws on key material from the character's
  experience.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That
  beautiful pair
• of eyes gazing at you from the top of this page
  signifies
• perspective. This book was written through the
  eyes of
• a rambunctious teenager living in a world quite
  unlike our own.
• The way Shabanu deals with her problems and
• perceives her feelings is represented in the
  diamond
• because its beauty shines from the center of a
  rock like
• Shabanu. She has so much beauty in her heart but
  she
• saves some of it inside where no one can reach
  it.In
• the background is a footprint in the sand,
  showing not
• only the terrain that Shabanu lives in in
  Pakistan, but
• also the footprints she has to follow. Her
  ancestors long
• ago made these prints and everyone is forced to
  follow.
• The mouth located in the middle of the collage
  represents
• the fact that Shabanu is not afraid to speak her
  mind.

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Project Commemorative Stamp

• Directions  Select a key character or scene, or
  focus on an important theme from your book, and
  develop a stamp to commemorate that character,
  scene, or theme. Include a picture, a selected
  phrase, and the stamp's value.     The first
  stamp shown below was designed from Mildred
  Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and depicts
  symbols of racism, segregation, and
  reconciliation. The second stamp is based on
  Patricia Polacco's The Trees of the Dancing
  Goats, and the third is from Waterman's Boy by
  Susan Sharpe.

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Project Game Board

• Directions Create a board game based on the
  characters, events, or theme of your book. Be
  sure that the game is playable and that
  participants must rely on their knowledge of the
  book in order to succeed!
• The example shown below, The Shakespeare Dealer,
  is based on several books in a literature circle
  unit on William Shakespear's time. Teacher
  Janine King, 6th-8th grades, Brighton School,
  Lynnwood, Washington.

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Project Setting Pamphlet

• A setting pamphlet is just one of many
  possibilities for an extension project using a
  pamphlet or brochure format. Students select four
  or five key settings for significant events in
  the book or places that had major impacts on the
  characters' development. Each panel of the
  pamphlet can represent a different setting with
  an illustration and short written explanation of
  how that setting influenced the story or affected
  the characters' lives.
• The example shown below is based on Let the
  Circle Be Unbroken, by Mildred Taylor

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Project Main Idea Belt

• Directions
• 1. After students have finished reading a book,
  have them brainstorm five significant events in
  the plot (or five stages of character
  development).
• 2. Using cups or a compass (or any circular
  object), trace six larger circles on black
  paper and twelve smaller circles on white
  paper. The exact sizes are not critical the
  white circles should fit inside the black ones.
  Cut these out.
• 3. Glue a white circle to each side of each black
  circle.
• 4. Have students think of a symbol to use as a
  border around the edge of one of the white
  circles on each disk.
• 5. On the first disk, write the title and author
  of the book inside the symbolic border. On the
  back the student writes his or her name.
• 6. On the remaining five disks, create an
  illustration inside the symbolic border to depict
  each of the main events.
• 7. On the back of each of these disks write a
  sentence to describe the main event and another
  sentence to explain its importance to the story.

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Pictures of Main Idea Belt

• As you can see in the photos below, the Main Idea
  Belts can be strung together with yarn or string
  and hung on the wall or bulletin board. The
  example below on the left (from Roll of Thunder,
  Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor) shows a close-up
  of belt segments with images on one side and
  illustrative quotes from the book on the other.
• The example on the right shows three main idea
  belts based on Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, A
  Place to Call Home by Jackie French Coller, and
  Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt.

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Project Story Hat (Primary grades)

• Directions Make a "newspaper hat" out of a piece
  of white butcher paper. At the top of the hat's
  front side, write the name of your book and the
  author. Divide the front brim into three
  sections. In the first section draw something
  that happened at the beginning of the book. In
  the middle section, draw something that happened
  in the book's middle. In the last section, draw
  the problem of the story. Then divide the brim on
  the back of your hat into two sections. In the
  first section, draw how the problem was solved.
  In the last section, draw something that happened
  at the end of your book.
• The example shown below is the model made by a
  first grade teacher based on Audrey Wood's Little
  Penguin's Tale.

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Project Story Quilt

• Directions
• After students have finished reading a book, have
  them choose a key scene, main event, character,
  chapter, or theme to illustrate.
• Squares can be made from paper or cloth. The
  simplest format is white construction or copy
  paper cut into a square with dimensions of nine
  to 12 inches. The size of the square and the
  number of students will determine how large your
  final quilt will be.
• We suggest that you guide students to draw a
  draft of their quilt square on scratch paper.
  This will help them plan the spacing and
  arrangement of their visual and written
  responses.
• Around the edges of the square, students draw a
  one-inch border.
• Inside the border the students create their
  illustration. We suggest that you have them
  include a sentence or two explaining the
  significance of the illustration, or a quote
  directly from the book that supports the
  illustration.
• Students can create their quilts with their
  literature circle group (so that each group uses
  a common motif for the border but each student
  creates his/her own square). You can also create
  the quilt with the whole class. In that case,
  students brainstorm ideas for symbols to go
  around the border and then vote for their
  favorite.
• As a final touch, every student draws in the
  border.
• You then mount all the squares on a long strip of
  butcher paper. If you dont have the right number
  of squares to make even rows, you can have a
  student (or group) create an extra square with
  the title of the book and author. If you need yet
  another square to even things out, you can ask
  another student to create a square that
  identifies the class that made the quilt and
  include the date.

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REMEMBER An important part of extension projects
is having each student present their project to
the class. With the quilt it is fun to sit in a
circle and have each student lay their square on
the floor as they talk about their process. This
way students get to see the quilt slowly come
together into one complete work of art.
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Project Themed Images

• Theme images are illustrations of key concepts
  related to a thematic literature circle unit.
  Students select one word that represents a
  central concept important to the theme of the
  book. They illustrate the concept, weaving the
  word itself into the image in some way. Students
  then write an explanation of how the image and
  the word they've selected relate to the theme in
  a meaningful way.
• The examples below are from a literature circle
  unit on the internment of Japanese Americans
  during World War II. The students selected
  Swallowed by Injustice as the theme that tied the
  books together.