HOW TO CATCH A WITCH activities and lesson plan ideas

This HOW TO CATCH A WITCH 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, HOW TO CATCH A WITCH by Alice Walstead, 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 SETTING

☐ MAKING CONNECTIONS

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ SUMMARIZING | RETELLING

☐ VISUALIZING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ PRONOUNS

☐ HOMOPHONES

☐ CONTRACTIONS

☐ MULTIPLE MEANING WORDS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ TEAMWORK

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

It’s Halloween night and a group of friends are dressed in their costumes ready for trick-or-treating. As they walk around, the children notice more ghosts, ghouls and goblins keep appearing and soon there are more creatures than kids in the town! The children see a witch flying in the sky and realize she is inviting all the creatures. They decide they need to trap the witch to send all the ghosts, ghouls and goblins back.

First, the children try and catch the witch by offering to add bristles to a broom for free. They also try offering a prize for best dance moves but have no luck. As the children work to trap the witch, more creatures keep appearing.

Finally the children set their last trap, a Tunnel of Tricks. When the witch comes along though, she just flies right through the tunnel and doesn’t get trapped. Instead, all of the creatures meet up with the witch for a dance party! The children join in on the dancing until all the creatures leave through a portal.

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