Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Memoirs of a Tortoise 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 coping, emotions and friendship, this Memoirs of a Tortoise picture book by Devin Scillian 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 Memoirs of a Tortoise Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Memoirs of a Tortoise. 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 Memoirs of a Tortoise reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
MEMOIRS OF A TORTOISE SUMMARY
This heartwarming story is told from the perspective of a tortoise. Every day, he sees his pet human, Ike. Ike plays fetch, gives him food, and pets his smooth shell. This story takes us through each month and season, until Ike no longer comes out to play. The tortoise walks to see his mother, where he learns that pets do not live as long as they do. They must be grateful for the time they share together.
With that, we infer that Ike has passed away. The tortoise goes home, but he is not sure if it will feel the same. That is, until Ted comes to play. Ted lives in the same house as Ike did. He is Ike’s son!
This beautiful story teaches students about honoring the life of pets and looking forward to new adventures.
MEMOIRS OF A TORTOISE 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 Memoirs of a Tortoise, 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 Memoirs of a Tortoise reading comprehension questions focus on:
- authors purpose
- making inferences
- point of view
- retelling
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- coping
- emotions
- friendship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- quotation marks
- contractions
- proper noun months
MEMOIRS OF A TORTOISE 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 Memoirs of a Tortoise?
- Lexile® Measure: 550L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 28
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Devin Scillian. It was illustrated by Tim Bowers.
What genre is Memoirs of a Tortoise ?
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 32 pages long.
