LitWits helps parents and teachers bring great books to life—so kids want to read more! We offer free creative teaching ideas and affordable printables for 50+ classic children's books, so you can share meaningful lessons in joyful ways.
While kids are doing what a character did, they’re learning what that character learned. They're gaining confidence and integrity. They're exercising their imaginations. They're developing their writing, critical thinking, and coping skills. They're becoming empowered to thrive in life and school.
Best of all, they're finding out that great books can be great fun!
More fun and inspiring for kids—and for YOU!
fun, straight-from-the-story activities
creative projects layered with meaning
multisensory experiences of "what that was like"
natural learning by doing
lessons made memorable for life
everything you need to plan lessons, all on one page!
ideas that will work for your class, goals, budget, and time
teaching points
learning links
story prop suggestions
syntax and vocabulary that influence writing skills
plots driven by character development over action
a strong focus on integrity, coping skills, and other life lessons
inspiration of empathy for others
and so much to pick up about writing, life, and each other!
15 years of figuring out what engages kids most
based on hundreds of workshops with kids ages 7-12
activities pre-packed with lessons we know kids "get"
proven success helping reluctant readers become avid readers and fans of classic books!
Free hands-on ideas and instructions for teaching great things from 50+ great books!
Worksheets and activity printables for sale.
Just click to see the list and explore our creative ideas.
for tips, updates, & discount codes
Here's an example of our fun, creative teaching ideas (and printables) for Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Straight-from or twists-on-the-story activities that make concepts 3-D! Here, we turned Ma's talent for making the most of little into our own "Chopped" episode, using her ingredients. But not the pig's bladder.
Straight-from-the-story projects & printables that let kids get their hands on multiple concepts--here, the science of frost, the theme of "making the most of little," and what calico looks and feels like.
In our live workshops, we bring "actual stuff from the story" for the kids to see, smell, hear, and feel. Online, we invite kids to show off their own. They love that.
We include a snack from the story; it has to be plot-centric, setting-specific, theme-critical, or all three--and ideally, it's something kind of weird. Vinegar pie hits on all that.
We try to "sensorize" as many projects, activities, supplies, and props as possible! Here, a nosefull of cloves is part of a project that embodies a major theme.
If a character did something physical that we haven't done (ever or often), we DO IT. Here, kids get to jig to fiddle music, a la Granny. For other books, we've often created relay races, contests, and quests that combine several plot points.
As knowledge of the narrative arc is essential to being a good reader and writer, we give an overview of the concept up front. Then we define and talk/play our way through the book's specific plot points, pausing to "do what they did" in hands-on ways.
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We're sisters Becky and Jenny, the daughters of two teachers who introduced us to great books and raised us on an old apple farm (where Becky still lives) in Watsonville, California. We spent our childhoods reading in orchards and nooks, always stopping to taste, build, act out, smell, create, or otherwise do what the characters did. And that's how we deeply remembered those stories, and soaked up their embedded lessons.
We knew our experiences of books had helped us through school and (more importantly) life, so we made them into experiences for our own kids, too. In 2010 we founded LitWits and started "doing what the characters did" with other people's kids. And now here we are, live and online, sharing great books in LitWitty ways with the whole wide world. :)
Becky (right) is a journalism major who's been a literature-based homeschool teacher and a newspaper staff writer; she’s writing about a prominent local astronomer's wife, whose old diaries she found at the flea market. Jenny (left) has a BA in English literature and an MFA in creative writing. She’s been a K-6 teacher and a K-12 language arts tutor, and her scholarship, essays, and poems have appeared in several journals. She’s the author of MINE, a creative biography of the woman whose land she's walked for 30 years.
