Character Traits! A few freebies

Well, it was back to the bump and grind this week.  After 3 glorious, relaxing weeks off, I can't say I was exactly looking forward to going back.  I'm just looking forward to the end of the week! I saw this and it made me laugh because I have a classroom full of talkers so it is impossible to separate them all!!

This week we've been learning all about Character Traits to go along with our Realistic Fiction/ Character Change Reading & Writing unit.  In my district we use Lucy Calkins units as a guide and she focuses less on Character Traits/identifying them and more on analyzing them and how they change BUT I wanted to spend a week reviewing so we jumped right into Character Traits this week.  Here's what we did..

Monday we talked about how Reader's can identify the main character in a story and their wants.  This went right along with our writing unit too!  As writer's we started to think of something a boy or girl our age might want & what problems they might run into that will try to prevent them from getting it.  Here's the graphic organizer we used to start planning our story. (Click on the picture to download)

Yesterday and today we talked about External and Internal Traits.  I got a handy dandy student sheet (Click to grab it!) from Primary Paradise.  I forgot to take a picture of my Traits anchor chart but here's the one we did today...

It corresponds directly with the student sheet that they filled out (Freebie from Primary Paradise).  We read Jamaica's Find by Juanita Havill so that I can refer to it next week when we start analyzing characters and how they change.  Tomorrow we'll talk about Character's Feelings vs. Character Traits and review our chart to double check and see if we have any feelings that aren't traits.

They did such a great job on their own that I even hung them out in the hallway (Again- Picture fail!)  I can't wait to start  really analyzing characters, thinking about why they do things, and what we can learn from them!  

One last thing before I go.  I would like to start having guest bloggers once a week (if I can get enough guest bloggers).  I have 3 lined up with some fabulous idea to share with you.  So be sure to stop by Thursday's and check in with my guest blogger.  If you'd like to be a guest blogger, please please please contact me! :)

Off to set up groups for our field trip Friday! :)