The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: Lesson Plans and Activity Ideas

Prereading Activities

Lesson plans on “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” should include prereading activities that introduce students to vocabulary and concepts related to the story.

• Go over difficult words before reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” as a class. This will improve the comprehension skills of the students while they read the book.
• Introduce students to the author before reading the story. Have them read a biography on the author.
• Show students the cover of the book and ask them what they think will happen in the story.
• Present students with a dollhouse that has a wardrobe. Ask them what a wardrobe is and how it relates to the story.

Reading Activities

Reading activities for this book can easily involve a variety of fun and engaging activities.

• While reading the story, stop and ask questions about what is happening. Ask what the students think about the characters.
• See if they can make predictions about what will happen next in the story.
• Hand out a list of questions after each chapter and have students answer them. Go over the answers with the whole class to ensure that all students understand the material.
• Make a chart for the characters and list traits and major developments that occurred in the story.
• The story can be read as a whole class activity where students take turns reading and discussing the plot of the story.
• The story can also be read in groups but make sure that groups are split so that students of different learning activities are grouped together. Each member of the group can be assigned a task such as writer, presenter, information finder and leader.

Other Activities

• “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” lesson plans can teach students how to create a map. The children can draw Narnia and plot its locations of houses, castles and forests by using the book as a guide. Students can add to it as they read the story and mark where significant events took place.
• There have been several movies of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” made. Select one movie version to watch in the classroom and compare and contrast it to the book. Use a Venn Diagram and have children fill in the larger outer circles with what was different about the movie and the book. Then write the similarities between them in the area where the circles overlap.
• List the personal character traits of each character in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Students can select one character to compare themselves to. They can also write about how the four main characters (Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan) evolved in the story.
• The story is written in a descriptive way. Have students draw their favorite scene in the story using the words in the story to create their pictures. Incorporating Art into a lesson like this is also a great way to add cross-curricular links to “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” theme units.

Concluding Thoughts

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” lesson plans can introduce children to concepts such as adapting to change and displaying strength during challenging times. There are many lessons that can be used to support the story, but the ones in this article are some of my favorites.