A simple but creative project that involves picture books and creative writing.
Learning Outcome: Being able to identify strong female characters in fictional settings that can morally be applied to real life. Working on creative writing abilities targeted towards crafting our own strong female characters that teach audiences real-world lessons.
Materials:
Picture books for inspiration (see list of suggested books for ideas!)
“Books” (paper binded with staples) for the girls to write their own stories!
Art supplies for decoration
Project Run-Time: 1 Meeting
Step #1:
Have the girls explore strong female leads by reading their own picture books. For this project, it can help to simply check out a bulk of picture books from the library. Below are some of the books used previously that can be helpful to consider:
Paper Bag Princess
Stellaluna
The Lemonade Club
Owl Moon
Not all Princesses Dress in Pink
Pinduli
Olivia
Madeline
Grace for President
Piggybook
Me… Jane
I Want to Be a Cowgirl
Princess Smartypants
Since many of the books are short, encourage the girls to read two or three in order to trace the attributes and characteristics of the women in more than one story.
Step #2:
Have a discussion! Talk to the girls about what they noticed about the female characters in their books. Were these characters inspiring? What challenges did these characters face? How did they overcome these challenges? Could they relate to the characters? Would they have made the same choices or done something differently? What lessons could the girls take away from these books? Etc. etc.
Step #3:
Now, using what you've discussed about the inspiring women in the books you've read, have the girls create their own picture books. Creativity is key! Any genre, storyline, format is free game. Encourage the girls to create their own strong female character and keep in mind the obstacles, solutions, and lessons from the picture books they read to help drive their process.
Step #4:
Allow the girls an opportunity to share the characters and stories they created with the group.