Turk and Runt activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Turk and Runt Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Lisa Wheeler's book. Read aloud the Thanksgiving 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 inferences

☐ visualizing

☐ comparing and contrasting

☐ analyzing character

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ ask and answer questions

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ problem-solving

☐ advocation

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ proper nouns

☐ pronouns

☐ adverbs

☐ suffixes

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Turk and Runt tell the story of two turkeys that are brothers. Turk’s parents are so proud of him because he is big and strong. They imagine that he will be a dancer or football player. Runt, however, is much smaller and no one in the family ever listens to him. As Thanksgiving approaches, people visit the farm to pick out their turkey. The parents think the visitors admiring Turk want him to perform in a ballet or join a football team. No one listens to Runt’s warnings about Turk becoming someone’s dinner. He acts wildly and sickly to scare the visitors away and protect his brother. When an older woman arrives and decides Runt is the perfect size for her, Runt and Turk must work together to stop the old lady from taking him home.

Students will laugh at this silly Thanksgiving story about two very different brothers.

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 the 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