Today's post features our new guest blogger, Hilary Gard, who is a 2nd grade teacher.   If you like this post, make sure to check out her blog,  Primary Planet !

Hi! I’m Hilary from   Primary Planet   and I am guest blogging at Hameray today!

Today, I want to talk about teaching character traits. I recently used  Little Red Riding Hood ,   retold by Alan Trussell-Cullen from the Story World Real World series, to teach character traits in my classroom.

Most of my students had heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood, so before we started reading, we had a conversation about the important events in the story. With so many versions, sometimes the ending differs from book to book.

Then, we started talking about the characters. We decided that the two main characters in this story are Little Red and the wolf.

We talked about what character traits are, and decided that there are character traits that you can see (outside traits) and traits that make the characters the people that they are (inside traits).

Then, using the activity sheets that you can download below, we listed outside and inside traits together for Little Red Riding Hood . I completed mine on the document projector with the help of the students.   

Next, we had a discussion about the wolf. The kiddos had a great time talking about his character traits. Then, they worked with a partner to fill out the page with the character traits of the wolf. We also switched partners to see if they could add anything new to their pages. After that, we came back together to compile our findings on a class page about the wolf.

Teaching character traits is an ongoing lesson in my classroom.  We talk about the traits of characters often during read alouds, reading conferences, and in small groups.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you and your students enjoy the little freebie!

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Hilary Gard has been teaching for 17 years, 13 of those years in 2nd grade. She is a children’s book collector and does a weekly book series called Book Talk Tuesday on her blog,   Primary Planet .

To download Hilary's character traits activity sheet, click the left image below. For more information about Story World Real World ,   click the right image below.