THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS activities, worksheets & lesson plan ideas

 This THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS 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, THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS by Adam Rubin, 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 CHARACTER

☐ AUTHOR’S PURPOSE

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ ADJECTIVES

☐ EXCLAMATION POINT

☐ SUBJECT/PREDICATE 

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ COMPASSION

☐ TAKING OWNERSHIP

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

Old Man Fookwire is as old as they come. He doesn’t like puppies, and he doesn’t like pie. One thing he does love are birds. To him, birds are interesting and they keep him company.

One day, he decides to continually feed the birds to stop them from migrating in the winter. But with food, comes the squirrels. Old Man Fookwire tries to stop the squirrels from eating all the food from the birds, but they keep strategizing and finding ways to get it.

Eventually, the birds migrate and the old man is miserable. The squirrels begin to feel guilty, so they try to find ways to cheer him up. They give him money and arcade coins, but he is still sad. Then, they disguise themselves as birds and get a laugh out of Old Man Fookwire. Maybe these squirrels aren’t so bad after all!

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