Crafting Connections: Perspectives Craftivity

I don't think I know how to teach without providing my students hands on activities to go with what we are learning. I am so stoked that I found Deb from Crafting Connections! She has an amazing assortment of craftivity projects you and your students will just LOVE!

We have read numerous books this year, but none of the characters really lent themselves to seeing what was happening through another character's point of view quite like Valley of the Moon.

If you haven't read this Dear America diary book, put it on your to do list!! My students only receive an excerpt in our basal reader, Treasures, by Macmillan McGraw Hill.  Our librarian always knows when we are reading it because my students run in like a flock to see if it is available. Maria Rosalia is an orphaned American Indian who, along with her brother Domingo, lives on a Mexican rancho in 1846. 

First we created our anchor chart and notes in our Language Arts interactive notebook for Point of View: Different Perspectives.  Then I read one of Deb's mini-stories to my students and we highlighted one person's point of view, their thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and actions in one color. Then we did the same for the second character. Together we role played how the two characters saw the one event.

I cut out Deb's other story slips and handed them randomly to my students. They then found a partner that had the exact same story they had and together they sat down and read the paragraph.  Each partner chose a color and a character and highlighted that person's thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and actions. Then together they had to create a poster of the 1 scene from the two characters' points of view.

Of course, one group had to use the excuse that they needed to see a roller coaster up close so they could make their poster look authentic! Anything to take the iPad out!  I love the picture of the two boys collaborating on the paragraph to make sure they portrayed the perspectives correctly.

The second day we took this same concept, but students worked independently. They had to choose Maria Rosalia and then one other character from our story. What made this challenging for my 5th graders was that not every character in the story actually spoke. They had to rely on textual evidence from the author to determine the other character's perspective.  They really enjoyed this and I could tell right away who understood perspective and who needed more guidance.

 

 Once they had found their evidence, then they cut out their sunglasses, decorated them and glued them to their paper. They labeled the title, notes and the two different characters their scene featured.  Some students were careful about writing their evidence under the glasses so you would have to lift them to see what was under, while others just wrote! I was impressed with their understanding as 90% of them chose a character that never spoke in our excerpt. They had to truly get into the character's mind and thinking.

I am not sure why some of the pictures rotated. In my computer they are correct. I apologize for those! You can see that yes, we had to play with our glasses for a bit before we were able to finish this very practical craftivity. Even I got in on the action! I love how kids are soooo imaginative and creative! Check out Itzy's "Eyes in the back of her head" glasses! Why didn't I think of that?!

My students did an amazing job and I know that they understand Perspective. Thank you Deb! This was definitely a hit and they want to know when they can do it again.  I have book reports now planned centered around this theme!