Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Fireboat will love this post. It includes the book summary, teaching ideas, resource recommendations, and more.
With a theme of teamwork, this Fireboat picture book by Maira Kalman is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will become one of your favorites too! Elementary teachers love to share this book around 9/11. It is one of my favorite September 11th books for elementary students. Learn more about it below!
Engage Your Students with Fireboat Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Fireboat.
- 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 Fireboat reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
FIREBOAT SUMMARY
Maria Kalman’s book, Fireboat, introduces readers to a little-known hero of September 11th. The fireboat, The Harvey, played an important role in fighting fires on that day in 2001.
The John J. Harvey is a fireboat that was built in the 1930s. It fell out of use in 1994 after the city no longer needed fireboats. The boat was later purchased by a group of friends who wanted to restore it, but it was never expected to fight fires again.
On September 11th, 2001, firefighters who arrived at the scene discovered that the water pipes were broken, so their fire trucks could not pump water. The Harvey arrived to help. For four days straight, the Harvey pumped water from the ocean. People brought supplies to help, like fuel, sweaters, gloves, food, and coffee. With the help of the fireboats like the Harvey, firefighters were able to fight the fire until they brought it under control.
FIREBOAT 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 Fireboat, 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 Fireboat reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarize / retell
- analyzing setting
- identifying genre
- sequencing
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- teamwork
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- plural nouns
- suffixes
- multiple meaning words
- synonyms
FIREBOAT 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 Fireboat?
- Lexile® Measure: AD600L
- Guided Reading Level: O
- DRA Level: 30
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Maira Kalman.
What genre is Fireboat?
It is a nonfiction 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 48 pages long.
