Primary 2 English Holiday Project – A Book in a Box

A Book In a Box is one of our favourite holiday projects for our lower primary students. This project encourages students to develop essential skills that will help them in both their writing and oral.

The project requires students to choose a new book that they like. We remind our students that they should not use a book that they have already read. The aim is for them to read as many books as possible during the December school holidays.

When they have selected the one book that they like, they will need to collect an old box of any size or a paper bag. They will then have to decorate the outside of the box or bag with the title of the book, the name of the author, and the cover page (this is left to the student’s imagination).

In the box, students will need to place 3-5 objects that represent parts of the book. They can be real objects or they can create character cards with descriptions of their favourite characters – example, the protagonist and the antagonist.

Skill:

This is a great tool for getting students to understand the importance of characterisation in a composition.

Then, when classes resume, students will need to present their Book In a Box in front of the class. Using the objects in the box, they will summarise the story plot for the class and other students can ask them questions.

Skill:

This allows students to learn the skill of summarising a somewhat complicated plot. This skill becomes useful in the upper primary when they will need to understand more complex comprehension passages. Presenting in front of a class and answering their classmates’ questions will also help them in the oral component.

At the end of their presentation, each student is given a gift from their teacher to reward them for their hard work!

This is a great holiday project that can also be done at home. The Book In a Box can be worked on during the week at home and presented to parents over the weekend. In return, the child can be rewarded with another book of their choice!

Over the years, we have had some great presentations from our TF lower primary students. Below are some examples of our students’ Book In a Box.