Christmas Wombat activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Christmas Wombat Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jackie French’s book. Read aloud the December 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

☐ point of view

☐ analyzing character

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ identify the main idea

☐ sequencing

☐ cause and effect

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ honesty

☐ perseverance

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ nouns

☐ verb tense

☐ adjectives

☐ action verb

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

The book, Christmas Wombat, is a short and funny story told from the perspective of a wombat. In the book, the wombat is describing his day, almost like a journal. He comes across some carrots and excitedly eats them. However, there are some strange creatures, Santa’s reindeer, eating his carrots! The wombat continues to follow Santa and the reindeer, eating all of the reindeer’s carrots. He has never seen so many carrots in his life! By the time he returns home is he too full to eat the delicious grass he sees.

Students will love this funny story about a wombat that thinks the reindeer’s carrots are for him!

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