Character Masks Make Reading Fun!

My first graders just finished their first Readers Theater!  They had so much fun!  The best part of Readers Theater is how it makes the students feel about reading.  Even my lowest readers felt more confident about reading when we finished.  The plays we did were differentiated so that every student could participate.  What I have done in the past is written plays from familiar books to the level of the students.  We would end up doing about 4 different plays to accomodate all the students.  I created the mask templates used in both these plays and are available at the link at the bottom of this post.This year we just did 2 plays.

My highest readers did "The 3 Billy Goats Gruff".  Rather than copying the templates on construction paper, the students wanted to color the masks themselves.

 Some of the masks I used popsicle sticks as handles.  For bigger masks, I used skewers for the handles because those are only about $2 for 50. Just cut off the sharp end.  Loads cheaper than craft stores!

The others students did a play from our Reading Street Readers Theater Anthology because it had the reading skills and vocabulary that we had  been working on the last 8 weeks.  I changed it a little to accomodate my struggling readers.  They came to me afterwards and said, "Mrs. Johnson, I am a great reader!"  That made my day!

You can visit my store at Teachers Pay Teachers and download the masks for free for the next 24 hours only!  It includes17 masks for The 3 Little Pigs, The 3 Billy Goats Gruff,  and many other farm and zoo animals for other stories you can use with.

Click Here To Downlaod

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