Neck & Neck activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Neck and Neck Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Elise Parsley'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

☐ making inferences

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ ask and answer questions

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ feelings

☐ making good choices

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ suffixes

☐ prepositions

☐ action verbs

☐ interjections

☐ adjectives

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Leopold the giraffe is a popular attraction at the zoo. Children squeal over how tall his neck is and Leopold loves the admiration. One day, Leopold finds he has some competition at the zoo, a giraffe balloon!

A little boy is holding the balloon and thinks it is better than the real thing. Leopold is jealous and tries to compete. He can grin, zoom and bounce just like the giraffe but the balloon is still competition.

Leopold tries to solve his problem by popping it, only to find the boy returns with even more balloons!

The boy accidentally lets go of the balloons and they drift up into Leopold's favorite tree. He must decide whether or not to save them. When he does, Leopold finally gets the boy’s admiration and all is well again at the zoo.

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