Teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Corduroy will love this post. It includes tons of helpful information like the book summary, it’s reading level, , recommendations for related resources, suggestions for what skills to use the book to teach, and more.
With a theme of friendship, this Corduroy picture book by Don Freeman is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. This classic read aloud will be a big hit with your students too!
Engage Your Students with Corduroy Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Corduroy.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Corduroy reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
CORDUROY SUMMARY
Corduroy is a bear that lives in the toy department of a store. Each day, he hopes that someone is going to take him home. One day, a little girl stops by to look at Corduroy. While she wanted to take the bear home, her mother said she had already spent too much money in the store. She also said Corduroy did not look new because he was missing a button.
That night once all the shoppers have left the store, Corduroy goes out in search of his missing button. He takes the escalator upstairs, thinking it is a mountain and he has always wanted to climb a mountain. He makes his way into a room full of chairs, sofas, lamps and mattresses. When Corduroy is climbing on one of the mattresses he finds a button. He pulls and pulls until the button snaps off and sends him flying. That alerts the watchman who finds Corduroy and brings him back to the toy shelf.
The next morning, Corduroy wakes to find the little girl from the day before. She had returned to the store with money from her piggy bank to take Corduroy home. She brings him to her room where she has a little bed set up for him, right next to hers. Lisa replaces Corduroy’s button and he realizes she is a friend. Something both of them had always wanted.
CORDUROY LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for Corduroy, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based Corduroy reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarize / retell
- analyzing character
- plot | problem – solution
- identifying genre
- sequencing
- cause and effect
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- friendship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- plural nouns
- compound words
- shades of meaning
- time order words
CORDUROY ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for Corduroy?
- Lexile® Measure: 600L
- Guided Reading Level: K
- DRA Level: 16-18
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Don Freeman.
What genre is Corduroy?
It is a classics book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 32 pages long.
