LitWits Printables for
by Jean Craighead George
Make this book a fun, hands-on experience for kids—so they want to read more!
This set of activity printables and worksheets, used with our free creative teaching ideas, helps you bring the story to life in meaningful ways.
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Change their minds—and lives—in just one day.
Our printables and creative teaching ideas get kids INTO this story in fun, hands-on ways! They have a blast doing what the characters did, and learning what the characters learned. They also learn that great books are fascinating—and they want to read more.
Use our printables set and creative ideas to engage, educate, and inspire! Perfect for:
homeschool educators
classroom teachers
book club leaders
teacher librarians
anyone who wants to inspire kids to love great books!
ACTIVITY PRINTABLES
For supplies lists, instructions, and more fun ideas, see our page of Creative Teaching Ideas for My Side of the Mountain.
Printable: modern scenarios prompts
By imagining and acting out what Sam would do in some modern scenarios, kids get “under his skin”—and understand what makes him Sam. And they get a big kick out of the silly situations we’ve put him in! This activity is about what we know and expect of someone based on previous experience—in other words, it's about character.
Printable: pancake and tea labels
Pretend you're going to serve that awful possum stew with lousewort, lichen, and snakeweed, then dish up some Gribley Grub and Sam's Sassafras Tea to your relieved kids. This sensory makes a major theme into a memorable sensory experience.
Printable: song lyrics
Hold a slide whistle concert and singalong, celebrating Sam’s reunion with civilization—which all “Young Voyageurs” secretly want, after all.
Printable: rack card template
Sam's family eventually brings civilization to the woods, and his tree becomes a tourist attraction—something he’s not too happy about. But your kids will have fun with this “what if” activity that stretches their imagination beyond the book.
WORKSHEETS
Weave interactive worksheets between hands-on activities to help kids process ideas and retain information. For My Side of the Mountain, your kids can use our worksheets to:
take notes about the author while watching this video.
learn the important concept of the narrative arc, gain an overview of this story's structure, and engage in discussion questions (key included)
do some creative writing brainstorming, emphasizing that the point is to have an imaginary character act out their fantasies—just as Jean Craighead George did.
find the geographical setting of the story on a map
discover the story's theme
examine vocabulary words in context to make informed guesses about meaning
Worksheets stand alone, but if you'd like to integrate them with hands-on activities and valuable discussions, check out our page of free creative teaching ideas for My Side of the Mountain.
Instant access + money-back guarantee
These printables are for use with our free creative teaching ideas for this book.
On that web page, you'll also find loads of lesson-planning aids: curated learning links, prop ideas, discussion topics, and more.
Use the ideas and resources on that page to build your lesson plan, or just do whatever appeals to you and your kids. There's a lot there—don't feel you need to do it all!
Then read the book, do the prep, and get ready to have a great time!
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If your kids see the pleasure in the story, and want to read more because of their LitWitty experience, we'd sure love it if you too would leave a review!
Aw, you’re just the right age, whatever that might be! Just kidding—we know what you mean. We find that 8-12-year-olds are consistently “ready to LitWit.” Generally speaking, their reading level is high enough to take on the vocabulary and syntax of literature, and they’ve acquired enough knowledge to grasp new ideas. Yet they’re still full of wonder, and are highly responsive to the “check this out!” nature of sensory immersion.
However, we often have mature kids of 6-7 in our experiential workshops, and sometimes fun-loving kids of 13-14. As a teacher or parent, you know best what your kids are ready for and interested in.
They're on our page of Creative Teaching Resources (linked above), along with Takeaway Topics, Learning Links, Prop Ideas, and other fun stuff to do!
We keep all that virtual so that we can include helpful links, update them regularly, and let you use our materials on a screen. We’re trying to save time (yours and ours) and trees too.
You can right-click to print that page, if you'd like a hard copy—be sure to open all the drop-downs first, so the hidden contents will print.
We're dedicated to being as helpful as possible, so if our products don't work for you, please let us know what went wrong, and we'll issue a full refund.
Sure you can, for your noncommercial use in your family or classroom. As long as you’re not calling your fun time a “LitWits” event or charging a fee, you can use our ideas and printables to do lots of wonderful things!
Just please don’t forward your printables or make copies for people who haven’t paid for them, of course, out of courtesy and to honor our copyright and per our Terms of Service.
You're off to teach the best of this great book in fun, hands-on ways!
We've got 15 years' experience teaching great books in sensory, hands-on ways, and we'd love to help you do the same. If you still have pre-purchase questions or need customer support, please reach out! You can also join our email list to get product updates and discounts.
Becky and Jenny