PAUL BUNYAN activities and lesson plan ideas

This PAUL BUNYAN Activities and Interactive Read Aloud Resource Book Companion Packet includes lesson plans, reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, writing and word study activities with both printable and digital student pages.

Following an interactive read aloud of the picture book, PAUL BUNYAN by Steven Kellogg, choose from the included collection of either printable activities or go paperless and use the digital activities to practice standards-based skills. We've even included editable teaching slides themed to match the book!

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️READING STRATEGIES

☐ ANALYZING CHARACTER

☐ CAUSE AND EFFECT

☐ ANALYZING ILLUSTRATIONS

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ SUMMARIZING | RETELLING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ PLURAL NOUNS

☐ HOMOPHONES

☐ HELPING VERBS

☐ PRONOUNS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ COMPASSION

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Paul Bunyan was born in the state of Maine and was known for being the biggest, strongest, and smartest baby. From an early age, Paul was interested in his family’s logging business. In fact, he would walk around the neighborhood collecting trees, but his neighbors were not happy about that. To prevent further problems, Paul’s parents put his cradle in the harbor. However, Paul was rocking so much it caused even more problems. That’s when the family decided to move to the backwoods.

Paul loved his life in the backwoods. He enjoyed being outside and playing with the animals. Paul never lost his passion for logging and left home when he was seventeen to start a traveling logging company. Paul always had a creative way of solving problems he came across while logging. He built houses on wheels, a gigantic flapjack griddle large enough to feed his whole crew, and colored sunglasses for his ox who was depressed during a blizzard.

During his journey logging throughout the west, Paul became known as a great lumberman. He was even known for creating the Great Lakes and the Grand Canyon. Paul Bunyan was not only a great lumbermaan, but he was compassionate, creative, and strong.

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