The Giver Lesson Plans

I am so excited to share this entire unit we put together celebrating The Giver! With the wild technology and crazy world we're living in right now, this book felt incredibly appropriate.

I compiled a variety of fun activities to supplement the novel and share with you.

I really wanted the kids to soak up what was happening throughout the novel so we only read one chapter per day. Each chapter offers so much information and it's such a short novel, I didn't want to rush it. They followed along, highlighting interesting facts as I read it aloud to them. They were welcome to go back and re-read the chapter after we read it, but not before.

It was like the olden days when you watched your favorite show complete with a cliffhanger and had to wait for the next week to find out what happened. The anticipation is part of the fun! It also allowed the kids to think up predictions about what might happen next. 

After each chapter, they took a closed-book quiz and then, responded to some comprehension questions, and after the novel was complete, they took a final test before we moved on to the more creative projects.

Below are the resources mentioned above. I appreciate Teachers Pay Teachers so much! Just click the name to take you to the appropriate website.

• The Giver Chapter Quizzes

Scholastic's guide to The Giver gave us so many talking points. We often discussed during the school day, after reading a chapter, and then, again at dinner after we'd processed the questions a bit further. 

That same guide gives you a great education on Lois Lowry herself, as well. We enjoy learning about the person behind the theme and thoughts within a story. It's amazing to think how they imagined it up.

• The Giver Comprehension Questions (page 18)
• The Giver Test

To keep everything organized and easily accessible, I distributed all of these quizzes, questions, and test into each child's Google drive. It saves so much on paper and can easily be downloaded when completed into a folder on their laptops.

Reading and discussing is not where the fun ended, though. We took the entire semester to really dive into the ideas behind the story.

We reviewed all of the jobs within Jonas' community. From there, each child had to participate in a Job Fair and fill out a resume, applying for a job they felt best suited them.

• JOB FAIR LINK

Some of them felt naturally pulled toward "jobs" they were familiar with, but, in the end, they recognized, in Jonas' society, they'd end up living a pretty harsh life. They had to be very thoughtful about the conditions of their work environment and sensitive to what they might truly be able to handle.

Next, they began to design their Utopian society.

First up was choosing what they would award during their Age Ceremony - similar to Jonas' community (pictured below.) They designed a poster in Canva with a symbolic image accompanying the award and then transferred it into PowerPoint.

From there, they continued creating their PowerPoint presentation by following the guide below. Each slide represented something in their community including Government, Education, Family, Money, etc. - finishing one slide per day. Each day they check-marked a box on the guide.

• Utopian Society Presentation (created by amberchandler.com)

For the map portion of their project, I purchased a digital one from Teachers Pay Teachers. 

• MAP

They created personalized street names, listed all of the important buildings, etc., and transferred it to their PowerPoint.

The end result was so well done and each child's world looked incredibly different. Some resembled Jonas' with stricter rules and protection while others offered more freedoms and independence. None of the student societies were technically right or wrong, since in their minds it was what they defined as a perfect world. Below are a couple of examples of their slides. 

Although, seeing how differently everyone portrays Utopia made them realize that there is not a perfect world. There would be flaws in each society that someone would ultimately have an issue with, but they quickly learned that it is frustratingly hard to please everyone. 

To sum up the unit, we did a couple of fun, hands-on activities I found from Presto Plans.

To imagine they were experiencing Memory Transmissions, they worked as a group to answer a series of reflection questions as if they were the student that The Giver shared his memories with for the first time. It was so fun for them to get to play the character of Jonas.

To get the free download, click the image below.

 

Next, they did an activity that mimicked Jonas seeing the color red in the story. Using optical illusions, they had to really concentrate and focus their eyes on seeing the deeper picture. It definitely tricked their minds and not everyone was able to see each image, but that was an important part of the activity just like when Jonas couldn't get his friends to see what he was seeing.

Click on the image below to access the set of optical illusions and questions that followed.

There were more activities available, but these are the two I went with. To see the rest, click here

We really had a blast implementing all of these activities throughout the semester. It has been one of our favorite novels so far. Although the book is banned in some parts of the country, I think it is thought-provoking and a great resource for critical thinking among our kids.

Enjoy this collection of activities and if you come across any you think would be a great addition, be sure to let me know!