Activities for Character Traits

Activities for character traits should be woven into daily literacy routines. As students study a book to understand one of its characters, they’ll also be able to determine the book’s plot and all applicable themes. This practice will also help students think more deeply about a text and help them understand why the author wrote the book in the first place. That’s why it’s important to incorporate activities for character traits as much as possible! Here are a few lesson plans for character traits elementary students actually enjoyed.

While using activities to teach character traits, don’t forget to stop to take some anecdotal notes! Taking good notes during work time is one of the best ways to target instruction and teach your students more responsively. Not sure where to get started? GET ORGANIZED! You need an assessment station in your classroom to keep track of notes and all that student data. Grab your FREE guide below to creating a data organization system that works and helps you to make formative assessment a part of your regular teaching practice.

Activities for Character Traits that Students Actually Enjoy

Make learning fun by getting your students into “character.” Research has shown that when students take on the role of a character it significantly increases their comprehension of both character and plot. It also impacts their overall understanding of the text because it forces them to stop and think from a different perspective. Students can be too quick to answer comprehension questions without actually stopping to analyze what they’re reading and how their answer affects the story.

I like to engage students in multiple ways as they “talk a walk” in their character’s shoes. These activities for teaching character traits include acting, designing characters, drawing, debating, talk shows, and so much more. Asking students to become their character has filled my classroom with giggles and devotion to their books.

Digital Lesson on Character Traits

One of my favorite activities to teach character traits is a digital character study. Students spend time assuming their character’s role as they answer character study questions on feelings, traits, and motivations. Once students complete the character study questions, they use that understanding to develop a theory about their character and provide advice in the form of a written letter. Here are the steps for this engaging and challenging character study.

Step 1- Outward Appearance

Using technology to create an avatar of a book character can be a really fun task for students. That’s why I typically do these projects digitally. This avatar creation site allows students to design their character based on outward appearance. This is the first step in getting students to envision their character in a unique way.

The site is pretty easy to navigate, and the final product can be downloaded and saved for later use. Students can choose a face shape, hair and eye color, and even a few clothing options. If their book doesn’t provide these details, I tell students to close their eyes and think about the movie in their head as they read… What do you see? I have students download their finished avatar and then upload it onto a character study assignment on Google docs. Students could also draw a picture of their character if you are looking for a technology free option.

Step 2- Inner Self

After students create an avatar, they need to switch their focus to the character’s inner traits. Now they begin to take on the character and think through his or her perspective. Students really show up for this activity! I have seen such great responses when asking students questions like “how are you feeling today” or “tell me what you are going through?”

This is the perfect time to teach the definitions and the difference between a feeling and a trait. It’s important for students to know that a feeling is an emotion, while a trait is the way a character generally thinks or behaves. Feelings can turn into traits, of course, but that usually happens over time. Activities for character traits need to teach this concept explicitly so students can understand how to describe a character. This is one of the first steps in thinking about plot, character choice, and eventually how theme is presented.

Teaching inner self can be done by asking students questions as if they were talking to the real character. How are you feeling? What would other people say about you? What qualities would describe you most of the time? Reference materials like a dictionary and thesaurus are great resources when teaching these concepts. Not only does this cover another required standard, it allows students to think deeply about a specific feeling or trait word. Students can also answer these questions with text evidence, hitting yet another standard.

Step 3- Deepening Comprehension

For the final step, I love to deepen comprehension by pulling everything together with some reflection activities. Students go back to thinking outside of their character by taking the information they’ve learned and creating a theory. The theory is their overall idea of the character, what the character wants, and what they think about their character after finishing the story. This can be challenging for students, so teacher examples are helpful. Overall, though, I’ve found this activity is important in order to really push their thinking.

Another way to push students’ thinking during this reflection is to have them write a letter giving advice to their character. This one is a little more indirect and puts students at ease. I try to prompt with questions to ensure students focus on plot and character choices as they give advice. Both of these activities for teaching character traits are other great places to have students record that text evidence!

Use any or all of these ideas or grab the no-prep, completed version on my store here.

Character Traits Vocabulary Timeline

This is an awesome activity. And even though it can be challenging, it’s so helpful when students are learning synonyms alongside activities for character traits. These ideas are through gradation of meaning. Students place different synonyms on a timeline based on the word’s intensity. I start out by teaching what a synonym is before getting into how words can have different levels of intensity. See this example below using the word “happy.”

Glad and ecstatic are synonyms of happy, but they would fall on the opposite ends of the timeline. Ecstatic, of course, shows a stronger, more intense feeling. The words in the middle can become a little more challenging to place in the “correct” order. But as I do this with students, I encourage them to give evidence for their thinking. I remind them that there aren’t any wrong answers as long as they can provide evidence and context to explain their thinking.

Vocabulary timelines are great for any book as students build up their vocabulary around character traits. Students can use a thesaurus to develop their own synonyms, or you can have words ready for them to place on the timeline based on their thinking. I have used these for whole groups, small groups, and for independent work!

Talk Show Lesson on Character Traits

During talk shows in my classroom, students really have to get into character… They examine voice, expression, everything… We are full-on acting in our classroom. 

When I do this whole group, the activity is always about a novel that I am reading aloud to the class. We come up with a name for our talk show, I get into character as the talk show host, and ALL of the students are the main character. We play some music and when the music stops, the talk show starts. 

I welcome students onto the show and start prompting them with questions about their choices, relationships with other characters, and about who they are as people. And I’m always moving to different students for each question to give everyone a chance. Then, we go deep into discussion. I’ve found the whole class gains more from the activity as we collectively get to know this character better than we did before. Once students get better with this process, I split the class into two characters and include some debates in there! That is a blast because students get very passionate about their characters.

Once the questioning is over, I thank the “guest” for coming to the show, play some exit music, and we have a reflection as a class. Just know this does take a little practice. As a teacher, you’ll need to reflect about how to best get into character and stay there so this doesn’t become one big, silly activity. But when students are given guidelines about getting into character, they really take this seriously and they learn so much!

If you are looking for good questions to use, try questions from these FREEBIE fiction character conferences.

Assessing while using Character Traits Activities for Students

Through all of these activities, I use my checklists and my whole, small, and individual anecdotal notes pages. With the teaching points already listed, I can really listen to students with a clear focus because I know exactly what I am looking for. When I’m not looking for all of the parts that make up a reader, it makes taking notes and finding teaching points that much easier.

After taking notes, I can identify which students should be pulled in a group to go in depth on feelings and character traits. Creating checklists and targeted anecdotal notes doesn’t take long, but it does take thought. If you’re still not sure where to get started, grab my guide for taking good anecdotal notes and start taking better, more targeted notes today!