The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Lesson plans and teaching resources

Character Charts
Students generate adjectives and descriptive phrases to describe three main characters that are central to the first three books within The Tale of Despereaux . They choose a character to describe.

The Tale of Despereaux
A variety of during- and post-reading activities, including word study, creating a coat of arms, writing persuasively, and exploring civil disobedience.

The Tale of Despereaux
How might students use storyboards to demonstrate and to extend their learning? Check the resources here. Students work with vocabulary, character maps, point of view, more. Note: Storyboard That helps sponsor this site.

The Tale of Despereaux
Summary and a dozen discussion questions.

The Tale of Despereaux : Fact or Fiction?
Students choose a section of the book and research medieval times to make comparisons between the events that occur in the book and what they learn about this time in history from other web and print sources. Students will then choose a project based on their learning style to showcase the information they learned about medieval times.

The Tale of Despereaux Teacher Guide
Plot summary, vocabulary, prereading, a variety of reading strategies, character education, interdisciplinary connections, and handouts. This 20-page teacher guide requires Adobe Reader for access.