Don't make your kids read great books.

Make them WANT to!


Hands-on, multisensory
activities and printables that
engage kids with literature.

Teach kids to read for fun and learn for life.


Our creative, hands-on activities help you engage kids with wonderful books—so they want to read more! Using our teaching ideas and printables , you can share meaningful lessons in joyful ways.

While  kids are doing what a character did, they’re learning what that character learned. They're gaining confidence and integrity. They're exercising their imaginations. They're developing their writing, critical thinking, and coping skills. They're becoming empowered to thrive in life and school.

Best of all, they're finding out that great books can be great fun!

LitWits' creative teaching ideas and printables help you make great books fun!

Teaching the LitWits Way

More fun and inspiring for kids—and for you!

Hands-on, fun experiences

  • fun, straight-from-the-story activities

  • creative projects layered with meaning

  • multisensory experiences of "what that was like"

  • natural learning by doing

  • lessons made memorable for life

Scroll down or browse our titles to see what we mean!

Free, one-stop planning

  • no more surfing the Internet for hours

  • ideas that will work for your class, goals, budget, and time

  • teaching points

  • learning links

  • story prop suggestions

  • everything you need to plan lessons, all on one page!

No email address requiredjust click to see!

The best of older books

  • syntax and vocabulary that influence writing skills

  • plots driven by character development over action

  • a strong focus on integrity, coping skills, and other life lessons

  • inspiration of empathy for others

So much to pick up about writing, life, and each other!

Kid-proven for 15 years

  • 15 years of figuring out what engages kids most

  • kid-proven by thousands of reluctant-turned-avid readers

  • huge collection of creative ideas based on what kids love doing

  • activities pre-packed with lessons that kids really "get"

Kids learn so much while they're "just" having fun!

Creative, sensory ideas for teaching literature to kids - from LitWits Workshops

Creative teaching ideas and resources

Free hands-on ideas and instructions for teaching great things from great books!
Worksheets and activity printables for sale.

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What other educators are saying . . .

"LitWits' experiential, hands-on approach might well be more successful in getting students excited about reading good literature than a more academic approach. | Becky and Jenny  . . . make the exploration of each book look like an entertaining adventure that students will be eager to join."

"[LitWits resources help you] create a whole mood and atmosphere surrounding the book. Kids are transported to another place and time to be part of the story themselves. I highly recommend LitWits to anyone that wants to enliven the literature part of their child’s language arts studies."

Jenn L.

Printables customer

"I organize my childrens' book club largely around LitWits options, so the more the better.  It is my children's tippy top favorite thing that we do for school - thank you for making it within my reach to create these experiences for them."



Mimi E.

Printables customer

"My 9-year-old daughter not only had a good time, but she also had those "aha" moments when you'd point out some interesting author's technique or theme, and already she is transferring what she has learned to other books she is reading and the stories she is writing."

Donna S.

Video workshops customer

Here's what LitWitting looks like!


Here's an example of our fun, creative teaching ideas (and printables)
for Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Creative activities

Straight-from or twists-on-the-story activities that make concepts 3-D!  Here, we turned Ma's talent for making the most of little into our own "Chopped" episode, using her ingredients. But not the pig's bladder.

Do-what-they-did projects

Straight-from-the-story projects & printables that let kids get their hands on multiple concepts--here, the science of frost, the theme of "making the most of little," and what calico looks and feels like.

Sensory props

In our live, pre-Covid workshops, we'd bring "actual stuff from the story" for the kids to see, smell, hear, and feel. Once we went online, we invited kids to show off their own. They love that.

BookBites

We include a snack from the story; it has to be plot-centric, setting-specific, theme-critical, or all three--and ideally, it's something kind of weird. Vinegar pie hit on all that.

Worksheets

We create worksheets that help kids get into a character's head or an author's style, or both. Worksheets are often visual, and are sometimes connected to a kinetic activity.

Sensory immersion

We try to "sensorize" as m any projects, activities, supplies, and props as possible! Here, we provided a nosefull of cloves as part of a project that embodied a major theme.

Kinetic activities

If a character did something physical that we haven't done (ever or often), we DO IT.  Here, kids got to jig to fiddle music, a la Granny. For other books, we've often created relay races, contests, and quests that combine several plot points.

The narrative arc

As knowledge of the narrative arc is essential to being a good reader and writer, we give an overview of the concept up front. Then we define and talk/play our way through the book's specific plot points, pausing to "do what they did" in hands-on ways.

Conversations

During and between activities, we're working in facts, Q&A time, and audiovisuals to help kids "get" why they're doing what they're doing. Because after all, an author always has a good reason (sometimes several) for every single thing someone does or says!

Doesn't that look like fun?!

LitWitting is a blast for kids AND for you, especially when you see that it WORKS!  Even the most reluctant readers want to read more. And kids who read more great books learn more great things. And turn into great people!

You can LitWit too—and save $4 on printables.

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Because kids who read more great books learn more great things.

What's so important about literature?

Ahhh, LOTS! Of course there's the fine writing in literature, and its powerful influence on academic skills. But there's nothing more important than the character and life skills learned and modeled by the main character. As he or she works through tough stuff, kids see their own ability to do the same. More people with coping skills and self-confidence? That changes the world!

Can literature really be fun?

It sure can! Doing what the story's characters did is a blast for kids. And in doing (for fun) what the characters did, kids learn (for life) what the characters learned. We're here to share our LitWitty ways for 40+ books, through free teaching ideas for you and fun workshops for your kiddos. 

Is it extra work to LitWit a book?

Not much, because we've already done so much of the planning and creating! We put a lot into designing our experiential workshops and into sharing our ideas and resources with you. Just choose some teaching points and activities, and gather a few supplies. Voila! Happy kids who love lit!

Help teachers find us!

If you think what we're doing is important, please share this page with your social world.

Becky and Jenny of LitWits Workshops

Who we are


We're sisters Becky and Jenny, the daughters of two teachers who introduced us to great books and raised us on an old apple farm (where Becky still lives) in Watsonville, California. We spent our childhoods reading in orchards and nooks, always stopping to taste, build, act out, smell, create, or otherwise do what the characters did.  And that's how we deeply remembered those stories, and soaked up their embedded lessons.

We knew our experiences of books had helped us through school and (more importantly) life, so we made them into experiences for our own kids, too. In 2010 we founded LitWits and started "doing what the characters did" with other people's kids. And now here we are, live and online, sharing great books in LitWitty ways with the whole wide world. :)



Becky (right) is a journalism major who's been a literature-based homeschool teacher and a newspaper staff writer; she’s writing about a prominent local astronomer's wife, whose old diaries she found at the flea market. Jenny (left) has a BA in English literature and an MFA in creative writing. She’s been a K-6 teacher and a K-12 language arts tutor, and her scholarship, essays, and poems have appeared in several journals. She’s the author of MINE, a creative biography of the woman whose land she's walked for 30 years.

Want joyful, creative ideas for teaching great books?