Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Elf will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With themes of courage and individuality, this Elf picture book by Kim Smith is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with Elf Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Elf. You can find it in the section below.
- 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 Elf reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
ELF SUMMARY
Kim Smith has turned the popular Christmas movie, Elf, into a beautifully illustrated picture book. Students will enjoy listening to this retelling of their favorite movie.
When a baby made his way back to the North Pole in Santa’s sack one Christmas Eve, an older elf decided to adopt the baby and name him Buddy. While Buddy grew faster than all the other children, he had more Christmas spirit than anyone. However, when Buddy was older, he learned that his real father, Walter was on the naughty list.
Buddy was determined to go to New York City to meet his father. He made the long journey into the city where life was very different. When Buddy finally met his father, he came to understand why he was on the naughty list. Walter was a grumpy man who prioritized work over his family. He did not take much of an interest in Buddy.
Buddy was able to find Christmas spirit in the city thanks to Jovie, a girl who worked at a department store. Buddy came to really like Jovie as they shared a love for Christmas. When Buddy tried to tell his father this during an important meeting, Walter yelled at Buddy. This caused Buddy to run away. However, on his way out of the city, Buddy ran into Santa. His sleigh couldn’t fly because there was not enough Christmas spirit. Meanwhile, Buddy’s father Walter and his son Michael were out searching for Buddy. They were able to lift Christmas spirit by singing carols outside the park and Santa’s sleigh was able to fly.
Walter learned the importance of family and Buddy was able to spend Christmas doing all of his favorite things with those he loved most.
ELF 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 Elf, 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 Elf reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing character
- cause and effect
- analyzing setting
- making connections
- summarizing / retelling
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- courage
- individuality
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- articles
- possessive nouns
- pronouns
- adverbs
ELF 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 Elf?
- Lexile® Measure: AD600L
- Guided Reading Level: 0
- DRA Level: 30
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Kim Smith.
What genre is Elf?
It is a fiction 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 40 pages long.
