Strictly No Elephants activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Strictly No Elephants Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Lisa Mantchev's book. Read aloud the holiday picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

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

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making predictions

☐ analyzing character

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ author's purpose

☐ ask and answer questions

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ inclusion

☐ friendship

☐ empathy

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ proper nouns

☐ contractions

☐ quotation marks

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

The main character in Strictly No Elephants is a boy with a tiny pet elephant. He is very excited for Pet Club Day and is shocked when he sees a sign on the club door that says strictly no elephants.

The boy runs into a girl who was also turned away from the club because of her pet skunk. The boy and girl decide to form their own club, and state that all are welcome.

Students will examine the importance of inclusion and the characteristics of a good friend as they hear the story Strictly No Elephants.

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