Happy Tales Book Club Activity: Learning About Setting

Here's a game we played in our homeschool book club to learn about setting!

You'll need:

Some cards printed with different things that might happen in a story. Here are mine:

A mouse squeaks : A policeman goes to work : An astronaut finds an enormous rock : A deer and a fox are friends : A tiger drinks from a muddy river : A bat sets a trap for a spider : A skydiver gets ready to jump : A taxi cab hurries at a green light : An alligator invites his friends to play : A family of birds get ready for Christmas : A monkey eats a banana : A shark talks to a clam : A father ties his son's shoes : A snake waits until later : A cat yawns : A cow eats dinner : A kid puts his shoes on : A little girl has a tea party : A king and a queen talk about their garden : a dog finds a hidden ball in a bush : A princess loses her crown : A mother pig teachers her baby to sing.

Now you need "flags" printed with different settings. I made mine by writing the settings on half-sheets of paper and then taping each one to a straw. Here are my settings:

In a cave : In the ocean : In the city : In a tree : In a barn : On an airplane : In a castle : In the jungle : In a back yard : In a house : In the woods : On the moon

Obviously you can think of a lot more, and if you have lots more kids, you need at least one flag for every kid, or a correct number of flags if they're going to have more than one each.



The reader sits on a chair with the plot cards and everyone else forms a semi-circle around the chair, holding their flags. The reader reads the cards one at a time, and if you think you have a flag that could be a setting for that action, you hold it up. Let the kids take turns being the reader, and take turns with the different flags.

This isn't a win/lose game, but it's a good way to talk about setting, and also led us to an interesting discussion about fantasy and reality, as we could think of ways that a cow could eat dinner in a house, or in a castle, or on the moon. No right or wrong answers. The kids also wanted to make up their own settings and their own plot cards, so it was good to have a couple extra flags and cards to use.

Have fun!

homeschooling games reading setting lesson