Gaston activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Gaston Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Kelly DiPiucchio’s book. Read aloud the 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

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ analyzing character

☐ asking and answering questions

☐ cause and effect

☐ author's purpose

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ self-esteem

☐ friendship

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ common and proper nouns

☐ verb tense

☐ suffixes

☐ interjections

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Gaston, by Kelly DiPucchio, tells the story of Mrs. Poodle and her four puppies. Mrs. Poodle teaches her puppies to be proper and graceful. Gaston, however, is not like the other puppies. He grows the biggest and has to try harder at everything than his siblings.

One day at the park, Mrs. Poodle spots Mrs. Bulldog and her puppies. One of the bulldog puppies, Antoinette, looks and acts differently than the others. She is proper and graceful while the others are big and rough. The mother dogs realize they made a mistake. Gaston ends up going home with the bulldogs and Antoinette goes to the poodle’s house. Both puppies are uncomfortable in their new homes, and so are the mothers! The next day at the park, the mothers switch the puppies again and everything feels right again.

Students will love this sweet story about the puppies and learn about being true to themselves.

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