Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Gaston 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 self-esteem and friendship, this Gaston picture book by Kelly DiPucchio 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 Gaston Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Gaston. 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 Gaston reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
GASTON SUMMARY
Gaston, by Kelly DiPucchio, tells the story of Mrs. Poodle and her four puppies. Mrs. Poodle teaches her puppies to be proper and graceful. Gaston however, is not like the other puppies. He grows the biggest and has to try harder at everything than his siblings.
One day at the park, Mrs. Poodle spots Mrs. Bulldog and her puppies. One of the bulldog puppies, Antoinette, looks and acts differently than the others. She is proper and graceful while the others are big and rough. The mother dogs realize they made a mistake. Gaston ends up going home with the bulldogs and Antoinette goes to the poodle’s house. Both puppies are uncomfortable in their new homes, and so are the mothers! The next day at the park, the mothers switch the puppies again and everything feels right again.
Students will love this sweet story about the puppies and learn about being true to themselves.
GASTON 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 Gaston, 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 Gaston reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- summarizing and retelling
- analyzing character
- asking and answering questions
- cause and effect
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- self-esteem
- friendship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- common and proper nouns
- verb tense
- suffixes
- interjections
GASTON 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 Gaston?
- Lexile® Measure: AD500L
- Guided Reading Level: M-N
- DRA Level: 20-24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.6-2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Kelly DiPucchio. It was illustrated by Christian Robinson.
What genre is Gaston?
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.
