The BFG - Appearance & Personality

I love The BFG! It is a charming and funny story with a wonderful message for students of any age but, I especially wanted to share this book with my third graders. Before we even started, students listened as I read aloud excerpts from the first chapter that lead you to think about the giant as a scary, evil creature.

Students wrote down all of their feelings as they visualized the author's description. They mentioned: scared, worried, nervous, weird, creepy and more. Then, as we learned more about the BFG, students began to change their opinion.

Next, I gave students a set of cards, and without much direction, told students to make matches as quickly as possible...

Surprise, surprise. Everyone made the same matches! This is exactly what I was hoping would happen. We then had a discussion about why they made those matches and whether it is fair to judge someone based on their appearance. One student related this activity to the idiom Don't judge a book by its cover and how in our match-making, we had done just that.

Then, I challenged students to create new matches with unlikely characters! And, this is what they created. They are definitely different than what you normally see in books. The students and I had a lot of fun seeing their new matches. It also carried a powerful message in regards to how we view people.