Interesting Interviews

This Monday we had a Reading/Math Share for our staff meeting (with prizes!). We were instructed to come with an activity/something to do to show and explain to our peers. 1st, 3rd and 5th were sitting at tables while 2nd and 4th walked around to 'see' all of the ideas. After about 15-20 minutes, we switched.

I wanted to share with y'all what I shared with my co-workers (we're all peers, right?). The 3rd and 5th grade teachers were really excited about my idea, and asked for the template so they could use it in their classrooms! (Which makes me feel really good since this was my first and last year at this school, and makes me feel better about myself as a teacher)

What I shared was a way to do character interviews. It's a really good way for students to think about character traits, summarizing, inferencing. The finished product looks like this:

What you do is read a story (or have the kids read a story) (this is the one I read for the example...it's a very cute story!)

Have the students pick a character from their story. They are to 'interview' their character, asking them questions about their feelings, experiences, etc. They then have to answer the questions the way they think the character will answer the questions based on the meaning they gain from the story. Here's the kicker...they only have 4 questions!

They make a foldable and they have 4 panels to ask and answer their questions. The questions go on the outside of each flap, and the answers go on the inside of each flap.

In the center of the foldable (the part they glue down to the back paper) they draw a picture of the character they interviewed.

The kids really enjoy doing this because it is like an arts-n-crafts activity, but they still get to show their learning. You might have to be careful though...some kids get really involved with the drawing and forget about the 'interviewing'!

We did this after we finished our fairy tale unit, and I had the kids pick their favorite fairy tale character. They did such an excellent job on them and some of their questions were really creative and in-depth.

I got this idea from this book, which I HIGHLY recommend for any and all teachers. Mine in the 4-6 version, but they also have a 2-3 version as well.

This was one of my first purchases after finding out I was teaching 4th grade (most of my experience and books are in the K-1 grades), and well worth the price ($18.99 through Amazon, and I think that you get also get it through Teacher's Express (watch for their Dollar Deals!)).  The book also has some recommendations how on to use this foldable in different content areas as well. I hope you found this helpful!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn