Depending on whether homeschoolers are making a presentation or project that will be seen by their family or by fellow homeschoolers in a formal or informal class, the following ideas can prompt ideas for ways children can explore their understanding of a book that they’ve read.
Art-Based Book Reports
For artistic children, these different projects allow for visual representations of a story’s plot and characters. These assignments can include as few or as many words as desired – incorporating a child’s interests and learning style as well as a parent’s interest in evaluating their child’s vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.
- Draw a cartoon strip of the entire book (if it’s short) or illustrate the most important scene(s) in the story. With more time, create a short comic book for the book.
- Design a bookmark that tells something about the story. The parent can determine how much text they want the bookmark to include. Incorporate a ‘collect them all’ marketing tactic and have the child create a bookmark for each of the major characters.
- Create a model from soap, wood, clay, chenille stem, etc to illustrate a character from the book.
- Make a puppet to represent a character in the book.
- Make a poster advertising the book. Children can look at movie posters to see how words and images tend to be pared down to allow a viewer to get a quick sense of a movie in a glance. Have the child create three-to-five miniature posters on 8 ½” x 11” paper and then discuss with the parent or with other homeschoolers how the image in each of the posters characterizes the movie’s essential points.
- Videotape an interview in which the child acts as the author of the book. The child can come up with the questions that the interviewer, a parent or another child, will ask.
- Craft a diorama depicting the most exciting part of the book.
- Embroider a stitchery sampler to illustrate a scene from the book.
- Make a mobile from a coat hanger and string. Each hanging element can depict an image of a character, setting, or event on one side of an index card and a description of its part in the book on the other side of the card.
- Look for objects that represent different parts of the book. Set them in a box or a bag decorated with the book’s title and author. The child then gives a presentation about the book, showing items from the box or bag to prompt their talk.
- Create a concentration game by drawing or finding online twelve images that represent characters, settings, or events from the story. Make two copies of each image. Glue the pictures onto twenty four index cards. To play concentration, shuffle the cards and flip them face down. Players take turns flipping over two cards and looking for a match. Turn over cards that don’t match and collect pairs that do.
Writing Based Book Reports
Writing a book report doesn’t have to be limited to listing who, what, when, where, and why. These creative ideas show off a child’s overall understanding of a story’s elements.
- Write a different ending for the story.
- Have the child compare a character in the story with a person they actually know. Write a paragraph or two in which they describe the ways in which the character and the friend are alike and the ways in which they are different.
- Make a word search puzzle.
- Make a timeline of events in the story.
- Make a crossword puzzle using words from the book.
- Write a letter to a friend recommending the book.
- Pretend to be the main character and write several diary entries describing important events in the book.
- Write a one-act play based on the book.
- Write a review of the book for a magazine or newspaper.
Whether as a drawing, sculpture, puzzle, or performance, children can show off their understanding of characterization, plot, and these in the books that they’ve read.
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