APRIL FOOLISHNESS activities and lesson plan ideas

Save yourself time and engage your students with these April Foolishness activities. This jam-packed book companion is quick and easy to use - Just print and go!

Read on to learn more about all that is included in this standards-based interactive read aloud packet based on the children’s book, April Foolishness by Teresa Bateman.

TO SAVE YOU TIME, WE'VE DONE ALL OF THE WORK FOR YOU!

1. We chose vocabulary words & kid-friendly definitions.
2. We selected mentor sentences & specific grammar skills for each.
3. We wrote 30 book-based writing prompts (that cover 10 genres of writing).
4. We identified an SEL focus / character education topic based on events in the story.
5. We constructed strategy-based reading comprehension questions and created no-prep, print-and-go reader response worksheets.

YOU ONLY NEED TO DO 3 QUICK & EASY STEPS:

STEP 1: PLAN

Simply customize your April Foolishness lesson plans using the ideas in the teaching guide and choose from the 15 standards-based activities.

STEP 2: PREP

Prep can be as simple as printing the activity pages (or assigning the included digital version) and finding a free video of the book being read aloud online.

OPTIONAL: If you want to dive deeper into a book study, you’ll find our teaching ideas and slides make it easy to create mini-lessons, anchor charts, and slideshows.

STEP 3: TEACH

Engage your students with an interactive read aloud by reading or streaming the picture book. Practice reading comprehension strategies with text-based discussion questions. We even wrote the April Foolishness comprehension questions for you!

Some teachers like to assemble and assign independent work packets. Others prefer to dive deeper into the story with vocabulary, grammar, SEL, and writing lessons that can span over several days.

THE APRIL FOOLISHNESS BOOK COMPANION FOCUSES ON:

◼️READING SKILLS

☐ ANALYZING SETTING

☐ AUTHOR’S PURPOSE

☐ MAKING CONNECTIONS

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ RHYME | RHYTHM | REPETITION

◼️GRAMMAR

☐ PLURAL NOUNS

☐ PRONOUNS

☐ NOUNS

☐ CONTRACTIONS

◼️SEL

☐ CHOICES

APRIL FOOLSHNESS SUMMARY

It’s morning on the farm and the children have come to stay with Grandma and Grandpa. As Grandma gets ready she is reminded the children picked a good day. Grandpa is downstairs making breakfast when the children burst in alerting him that the cows got loose. To their surprise Grandpa is not concerned and continues pouring his milk. 

Next the children tell Grandpa that the chicken are racing about, but he continues frying his eggs. After that, the children tell Grandpa the pigs have broken the gate, but Grandpa is not concerned. When Grandma comes into the kitchen to ask what all the noise is about, Grandpa shares that the grandchildren are trying to trick him. Grandma explains that it is not April Fool’s Day and Grandpa goes running outside but finds out Grandma was tricking him after all.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables