The Wizard of Oz: Reading Activity Ideas

The Wizard of Oz: Reading Activity Ideas

By Elizabeth Mosaidis

Countless possibilities abound for what you can do with The Wizard of Oz in your
reading class and beyond. You’ll find a shortened version of The Wizard of Oz in the
attached Education Manual along with some ideas on how you can incorporate it
into many different types of lessons and curricular units for varying levels and ages.
If you’re teaching children, you might enjoy doing some of the craft activities at the
end of the manual, while if you’re teaching young adults, a few of the writing
activities, such as character analysis or writing a sequel, might fit in well with the
objectives for your class.

Here are a few reading activities that you can try out in your classroom to deepen
students’ understanding of the material while also keeping them engaged.

Pre-reading Activities

1. Pre-teach vocabulary with images: Show images of the characters from The
Wizard of Oz and ask students to draw pictures or write down words that they
would associate with the characters in a vocabulary notebook.

2. Prediction: Read the first couple of sentences from the story and ask the
students to write down what they think will happen next. Students share their
predictions in small groups.

During reading

1. Emotion cards: Put students into small groups and give each group a picture of
a character and blank sheets of paper. Start reading the story aloud and stop at
different points in the story. Ask students how their characters might be feeling at
this point in the story. Students should confer with their group members to decide
how their character is feeling, write that emotion down on the blank sheet of paper,
hold it up, and have a spokesperson for the group explain why their character is
feeling that way.

2. Sequencing with pictures: Distribute a handout with a series of pictures from

the scenes of the Wizard of Oz. As you’re reading the story, students should
number the pictures in the order that they occur. Alternatively, students could read
the story aloud in small reading circles, numbering the pictures as they go along.

Post-reading Activities

1. What happens next?: Each student imagines that they are a journalist and
chooses a character from The Wizard of Oz. Then they write a newspaper article
about what happens to that character in the future. Students share their articles in
small groups.

2. Quiz Bowl: Hand out strips of paper to each student. Students write down
questions to quiz each other on the story. Collect the questions and put them in a
fishbowl. Draw the questions out of the fishbowl and have students write their
answers on mini whiteboards. (If you don’t have mini whiteboards, students could
raise their hands to answer the questions.)

This is just a springboard of ideas to get you started. How will you incorporate a
variety of reading activities into your lessons?

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