The Giver Activity Bundle - Creative Activities and Assignments for the Novel
The Giver Activity Bundle includes 13 ready-to-use activities and assignments to help students respond to The Giver by Lois Lowry. The activities in this bundle are engaging and interactive and allow students to form connections and analyze the novel. The assignments are fun and creative but also meet many ELA skills and standards.
Included in The Giver Activity Bundle:
Chapters 1-2
➡️ The Giver Telling of Feelings Activity: This fun and interactive classroom activity allows students to empathize with Jonas from The Giver. In the novel, families are required to participate in a ritual called The Telling of Feelings. During the ceremony, each person describes an emotion they experienced during the day and discusses it with the family. Allow your students to step into The Giver by assigning them a family within the classroom and having them participate in a simulation of The Telling of Feelings ritual.
Chapters 3-4
➡️ The Giver The House of the Old Activity: This creative classroom activity allows students to examine how the elderly are treated in different cultures and how that relates to The Giver. In the novel, the elderly are placed in The House of the Old and are eventually released from the community. Students will learn about how the elderly are treated in South Korea, Japan, North America, France, and in Mediterranean and Latin countries. Then, students will compare what they learn to Jonas' community.
Chapters 5-6
➡️ The Giver Dream Sharing Activity: This activity that allows students to empathize with Jonas from The Giver. In the novel, the members of Jonas' community must share their dreams in a daily dream sharing family ritual. This activity allows students to simulate this ritual in the classroom by forming a family group and sharing one dream they have felt lately based on prompting cards with common dream elements. Then, they will have the chance to interpret their dreams.
Chapters 7-9
➡️ The Giver Ceremony of Twelve Activity: This is an interactive classroom activity that your students will never forget! In The Giver by Lois Lowry, children are assigned their careers during The Ceremony of Twelve. Bring this into your classroom and allow your students to empathize with Jonas and the rest of the community by taking on the role of Chief Elder and assigning roles to each of your students! The resource includes absolutely everything you need to successfully facilitate a mock Ceremony of Twelve in your classroom.
Chapters 12-13
➡️ The Giver Seeing Beyond Activity: This activity will spark discussion about Jonas' ability to see beyond in The Giver. In the novel, Jonas can see color when his friends and family cannot. Use this fun and interactive class activity with optical illusions to help your students empathize with Jonas' experience and consider how he and the community members feel.
Chapters 14-16
➡️ The Giver Memory Transmission Activity: This classroom simulation activity allows students to examine the importance of keeping both painful and joyful memories. In The Giver, Jonas receives memory transmission from The Giver that brings him both pleasure and pain. During this activity, students will receive four new memories and consider whether they are important memories to keep. Finally, students will take on the role of The Giver and decide on one memory from history they think is important to keep.
Chapters 17-18
➡️ The Giver A World Without Pain Activity: This activity will allow students to examine a world with no pain as the community members experience in The Giver. Allow your students to make a real-world connection to the novel by reading and watching a video about a condition where people feel absolutely no pain. This activity is sure to engage your students in thoughtful discussion about the importance that pain plays in our lives.
Chapters 19-20
➡️ The Giver Family Structure One-Child Policy Activity: Families in The Giver are selected by the community's Committee of Elders, and partners are assigned two children produced by birthmothers. While this seems like an impossibility in today's society, this activity will give students a real-world connection with the example of China's One-Child Policy. Until relatively recently, families in China were only permitted to have one child in an attempt to control population growth. This article and small group assignment are sure to spark interesting discussions in your classroom that will form important connections to the novel.
Chapters 21-23 (Post-Reading)
➡️ The Giver Speech: Students prepare a speech for The Giver to deliver to the community after Jonas escapes. The speech should offer comfort and prepare people to deal with how the memories will change their lives.
➡️ The Giver Soundtrack: Students create a soundtrack for The Giver. They will need to find three songs that connect to the novel. They will choose specific moments in the plot and find lyrics to songs that connect with the important plot moment.
➡️ Jonas' Journal: The year between Jonas' assignment as the Receiver and his escape with Gabriel was a time of many challenges and growth for him. Students will imagine they are Jonas. They will write a series of diary entries that capture the most significant changes he experienced during that time.
➡️ Lois Lowry's Acceptance Speech: Students will read Lois Lowry’s Newbery acceptance speech for The Giver, and respond to a prompting question.
➡️ The Giver Plot Diagram: Students complete a plot diagram template with information from the novel.
➡️ The Giver Essay Topics: Provide these essay topics for students to choose from to write a five-paragraph essay on the novel.
What teachers are saying about The Giver Activity Bundle:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Love your product. The activities really forced my students to think outside the box. I could see their minds working and many remarking " I never thought of it that way before". What every LA teacher wants. So easy to use. Thank you, Thank you
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved using these activities! Each activity strengthened my students' connections to the book while having them apply the skills we were currently practicing. Great resource!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was the best Giver unit I have seen - great activities with wonderful discussion points. I hate when a "unit" is only comprehension questions. I teach GT students and my kids understand the books they read, they need to be pushed to think more deeply about the text. These activities were perfect for that! Thank you!!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My 7th-grade students are really enjoying the various activities provided in this resource, and they ESPECIALLY loved the "Ceremony of Twelve" Simulation!! Thank you!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I swear by this unit. It has been the best resource I've purchased from TPT...hands down!
>>>This resource is included in my unit plan for the novel!
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→ The Giver Escape Room Activity
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