THE CIRCUS SHIP activities and lesson plan ideas

This THE CIRCUS SHIP 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 CIRCUS SHIP by Chris Van Dusen, 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

☐ RETELL

☐ ANALYZE ILLUSTRATIONS

☐ AUTHOR’S PURPOSE

☐ FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ QUOTATION MARKS

☐ PUNCTUATION

☐ VERBS

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ BRAVERY

☐ COMPASSION

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Off the coast of Maine floated a circus ship with a greedy boss. When the boat began to crash, he told the captain to save him, not the animals.

The animals float to shore and frolic through the town, raising chaos. That is, until there was a fire and the tiger remembered how he used to jump through rings. He went into the building and saved the family.

From that moment, the townspeople appreciated the animals. A messenger came running, saying the greedy boss was there to collect his animals. Quickly, the people disguised the animals so the ringleader could not take them. The animals and people lived happily together in the little town of Maine from then on.

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