Artsy-Craftsy+Book+Reports

Ideas for Fun, Non-Traditional Book Reports that use Arts and Crafts

1. __Create a photo album __ showing important events in the story from the point-of-view of one of the characters.  Think about the events that happened in your novel. Decide which scenes or pictures from the novel a character would want to remember. Then draw several of these "photos" and put them together in an album.

Include captions for each drawing in the voice of your chosen character as if he or she is explaining the event to someone who wasn’t there.

2. __Create a comic BOOK__ based on the novel.  Create individual comic strips depicting major scenes.

Include color drawings, speech bubbles, captions, and even onomatopoetic sound words to bring action to the comic.

Be sure to design original front and back cover pages for your comic book.

3. __Book Report Road Map__  Using a fiction or nonfiction book, create a road map demonstrating the book’s various settings. Label each of the settings with the events that took place there.

You could also design a travel brochure describing the city or country in which the story took place. Include the history of the location, major attractions, pictures or photos, and perhaps some cultural information.

4. __Scrolling along__

Summarize the major events of a story in chronological order. Include descriptions and possibly pictures of characters, settings, and actions.

Then graphically represent the important elements of the story on a fabric scroll or tapestry that can be rolled up, held up to present, or hung up in the classroom.



5. __What’s in the bag?__  Devise a container in which to place your book report. It can be a paper bag, cereal box, shoe box, larger cardboard box, or even a large envelope or can.

Decorate the outside of the container with labels describing important details from the story, such as setting, characters, problem, solution, theme, and major events.

Inside the container, include ten questions answered by reading the book, ten unfamiliar vocabulary words, and ten items (real, drawn, or photographed) that depict or symbolize parts of the story.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">6. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">__Create life-sized models__ of two of your favorite characters and dress them as they are dressed in the book. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';"> Crouch down behind your character and describe yourself as the character. Tell what your role is in the book and how you relate to the other character you have made.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;">7. __<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Construct a diorama __<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> (three-dimensional scene which includes models of people, buildings, plants, and animals), or a miniature stage setting, of one of the main events of the book. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Include a written description of the scene.

8. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;">__Make three posters__ or poster/collages about the book using any combination of the following media: paint, crayons, chalk, paper, ink, photographs, magazine pages, real 3-D items, fabric. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13pt;"> Then write a sentence or two beside each item to show its significance.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman';">9. __Create a newspaper__ for your book.

Summarize the plot in one article, cover the weather in another, do a feature story on one of the more interesting characters in another.

Include an editorial and a collection of ads that would be pertinent to the story.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; msofareastfontfamily: Arial; msolist: Ignore;"> 10. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">__Make a character tree__ with several branches. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Each branch on the left side of the tree describes an event from the story. The symmetrical branch on the right side describes the character’s emotion or growth caused by that event. Make trees for every major character. Make bases so that the trees can stand. When completed, you will have a forest of characters from your story.