Story Spinners

Respond to books by creating new story scenarios with this paper plate story spinner.

• 1.

  Choose a book or story with multiple characters to read aloud as a class. Take turns reading by "Snaking It." With your classmates, choose a curvy path around the room to include everyone. Read one sentence and then the next person in the path reads. Continue until everyone has read, then begin again.

• 2.

  Using Crayola® Colored Pencils, divide a small paper plate into pie-shaped sections. Write the name of a character from the story you read in each pie piece. Make the letters distinctive and colorful.

• 3.

  Attach the small plate to a large paper plate by poking a hole through the center with a brass paper fastener. Secure the fastener on the back.

• 4.

  On the rim of the large plate, write the book title and author. Then add more lines with colored pencils to divide the remaining space. Fill with events and actions from the story.

• 5.

  With a small group of friends, take turns spinning your story wheels and sharing the characters' new actions. Match characters with events and actions. Create new story scenarios to share with classmates. Turn your favorite scenarios into original pictur

Benefits

• As a class, students read aloud a book or story, taking turns orally.
• Children identify characters, events, and actions from the story.
• Students create story-telling devices with which to create different scenarios for the story's characters.

Adaptations

• Add new story events and endings to the wheels to enhance critical thinking skills and comprehension.
• Special needs students read aloud, act out parts of the story, and perhaps invent new plot lines. The group lists the characters and events from which students will choose for their Story Spinners.
• Children write book reports on posters with a picture of a scene from the wheel depicting a character with a new action.