Creative Activities After Reading a Book or Story

My son loves reading, so I’ve been looking for activities for him to do this summer about the books he’s reading. I know that, in school, he’s done a lot of worksheets and quizzes about books, but I wanted him to work on activities that allowed him some creative expression and choice-making among activities.

I’ve been remembering the types of activities that we did when I was in school: creating dioramas, writing letters to characters in the book (or to the author), drawing favorite scenes, or other activities to respond to content in the book. What I love about these activities is that they give students the opportunity to express creativity and engage in thinking/problem-solving skills in the planning and development of these projects.

I wanted to find some creative projects my son could make about a book or story after he reads it, and I found a great resource that I want to share. I purchased it from the website TeachersPayTeachers for $10, which is more than I usually spend, but this was absolutely worth it!

This packet of printable activities has 30 fun, creative activities that a child can do about a book, such as creating a "wanted" poster for a character, making a mobile about the book, designing a t-shirt for a character, making a collage, etc. Each of these activities include ways that students have to use information from the book to make the project and a rubric that you can use to evaluate the student's work as an assessment measure. These projects would be great to include in a homeschooling portfolio, if you’re making one.

How I'm using it is letting my son choose a book and then selecting about 4 of the activities to offer him as a choice to do after he finishes reading it. This gives him some choice in the activity, but I'm selecting the ones that I think would work best with the book.

I appreciate that there are so many different activities to choose from, so my son can select the activity that he wants to do. According to autism research by Ulke-Kurkcuoglu and Kircaali-Iftar (2010), providing choices, even simple ones, can increase a child’s engagement in an activity.

I didn't make this resource and I don't make any money from its sale, but I just wanted to share it in case you were looking for activities. I'm sure there are lots of free activities online as well. I might just search for something like "ways to respond to a book" or "creative activities about books."

One of my primary goals for my son with reading is to enjoy it and love reading. I want to choose activities that allow me to assess his reading comprehension, but are also fun and engage critical thinking skills. I think that this activity packet helps with all of this.

Reference

Ulke-Kurkcuoglu, B. & Kircaali-Iftar, G. (2010). A comparison of the effects of providing activity and material choice to children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Volume 43, Issue 4.