THE GREAT TURKEY RACE activities and lesson plan ideas

This THE GREAT TURKEY RACE 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 GREAT TURKEY RACE by Steve Metzger, 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 CHARACTER

☐ ANALYZING SETTING

☐ CAUSE AND EFFECT

☐ MAKING PREDICTIONS

☐ SEQUENCING

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ PROPER NOUNS

☐ PLURAL NOUNS

☐ ACTION VERBS

☐ SUFFIXES

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS
☐ SPORTSMANSHIP

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:
The Great Turkey Race takes place on a farm just before Thanksgiving. While playing hide-and-seek with his friends, Ollie the turkey overheard Farmer Joe talk about picking a special turkey to be the Thanksgiving turkey. Excited, Ollie ran to tell his friends Cassie and Wing. Of course, each turkey thought that they should be the Thanksgiving turkey. The three friends decided to compete in field day events to earn medals. The turkey with the most medals would be the Thanksgiving turkey.

When the games started, Wing was not playing fair. He bragged and even cheated during some of the events. Ollie and Cassie were feeling angry with Wing. While resting, Cassie overheard Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate talking about the tasty Thanksgiving turkey. The three turkeys panicked at the thought of being eaten for Thanksgiving so they made a plan. On the last field day event, the high jump, the three friends jumped the fence surrounding the farm. As a result, Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate were left to eat vegetable stew for their Thanksgiving dinner.

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