Owl Moon activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Owl Moon Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jane Yolen'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

☐ summarize / retell

☐ visualizing

☐ analyzing setting

☐ anaylzing illustrations

☐ identifying genre

☐ figurative language

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ patience

☐ self-regulation

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ multiple meaning words

☐ adjectives

☐ compound words

☐ prepositions

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen, tells the story of a young girl who goes owling with her father one night. The girl has been looking forward to this for a long time. As they walk through the cold, dark night, she knows that she must be quiet. The two make their way through the woods, keeping their eyes open for owls in the night sky. Her father makes owl calls every so often as they walk along.

As they make their way deeper into the woods, Pa makes another call. Soon after, they hear a call back through the trees. The two wait patiently as the call gets closer and then an owl lands above them on a tree branch. Pa shines his flashlight at the owl and they all stare at one another until the owl flies off. Now that they had found an owl, the girl and her Pa could talk and made their way home.

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