GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT activities and lesson plan ideas

This THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANTS 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, THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANTS by Jerry Pinkney, 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 ILLUSTRATIONS

☐ ASKING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS

☐ SUMMARIZING AND RETELLING

☐ MAKING INFERENCES

☐ VISUALIZING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ IRREGULAR VERBS

☐ MULTIPLE MEANING WORDS

☐ ADJECTIVES

☐ TYPES OF SENTENCES

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ RESPONSIBILITY

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Jerry Pinkey’s version of the fable The Grasshopper and the Ants is beautifully illustrated. It tells the story of a Grasshopper and a group of Ants. During the spring and summer, Grasshopper wants to relax and have fun. The Ants, however are busy working and Grasshopper doesn’t understand why they work so hard.

When fall comes, Grasshopper enjoys playing in the falling leaves while the Ants continue to work. Things change when the first snow falls. Grasshopper enjoys the snow at first, but soon grows cold and lonely. He goes to visit the Ants and looks in the window at them. When no one answers the door he starts to walk away. However, the Queen Ant then comes to the door to offer Grasshopper tea and invites him inside. The Grasshopper and Ants enjoy dancing and playing music together.

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