Age-appropriate videos that help students understand the horrors of holocaust may also help them gain a fresh perspective about the social and political environment in which the two protagonists Annemarie and Ellen live. The PBS website includes interactive timeline and videos along with stories of three teenagers who tried to escape holocaust. Other videos such as "Surviving Hatred: Witness To The Holocaust" and books such as "The Book Thief" can also be used to provide relevant information that may help students understand why the characters behaved the way they did, and draw new inferences.
Create a play or a class presentation with the help of your students. The students may choose to play parts of characters that they can relate to whether they are Annemarie, Elle, Kristi, Peter Neilsen or Annemaire’s parents. Ask the students to explain why they chose those characters. As the students pretend to be the characters of the story and interact with each other, they will be able to read between the lines of the book, infer new behavioral traits of the characters, and arrive at new conclusions.
In chapter 14 of the book, as Annemarie is running through the woods by herself at night, she compares her story to that of Little Red Riding Hood. Help your students understand the similarities and differences in the way Annemarie and Red Riding Hood react when their baskets are searched by the respective enemies, the Nazis and the wolf. Ask your students to compare the instructions that Annemarie and Red Riding Hood received from their mothers. Ask your students to come up with other books where the protagonists face challenges similar to those in the “Number the Stars” book.
Ask your students to write a letter to one of the characters in the book. The students may choose their favorite characters and express their opinions about the characters in a conversational format. Pretending to talk directly to characters of the "Number the Stars" book and writing it on paper is an interesting activity to teach the inferences and perception to students.