Judy Moody character creation challenge

Introducing Judy Moody

Who is Judy Moody? She’s smart, precocious — and, yes, moody — but most importantly, she’s real. She’s flawed, she’s multifaceted and she’s relatable.

The Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald was originally published in 2000 and has been popular with children ever since, with over 19 million copies in print worldwide. In the first book of the series, we get to know Judy through a homework task set in her new class – a ‘Me’ collage. As part of the collage, Judy has to think about some of the best, worst and funniest things that have ever happened to her.

Judy Moody teaching activities

These resources challenge your pupils to develop the idea from that homework task, and pen a 500-word short story about a character they have invented, recounting either the best thing, the worst thing or the funniest thing that has ever happened to their character.

They include:

• A teachers' resource packed with ideas and tips to help pupils generate and discuss ideas, and enjoy bringing them to life on the page.
• Handy character prompt and superlatives sheets to capture thoughts and extend vocabulary.
• A certificate for running your own writing competition in school.

These resources were created in partnership with Walker Books for a competition we ran previously, aimed at pupils aged between 7 and 11 years.

Judy Moody books up for grabs!

If you run this activity in your classroom, please send us samples of five of the best/funniest stories written by your pupils, and you could be in with a chance of getting free copies of Judy Moody books.

Following the closing of the original competition, we have a few remaining copies to give away for free. Email copies of students' work to membership@literacytrust.org.uk mentioning the Judy Moody character creation challenge in your email message and you could receive a set of books!