Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel will love this post. It includes resource recommendations, teaching ideas, and information about the book. This post will save you lots of time planning your next read aloud lesson.
With themes of goal setting and loyalty, this Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel picture book by Virginia Lee Burton is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. You and your students will love it too!
Engage Your Students with Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
- 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 Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL SUMMARY
Set back to the 1930s amidst the end of the Great Depression, Mike Mulligan had a trusted steam shovel named Mary Anne. Together, they have dug out land for canals, mountains for highways, and cellars for skyscrapers.
Over time, Mike sees that there is progress with newer and stronger machines, making Mary Anne almost obsolete. Mike finds one last chance to show the world how impressive Mary Anne is by digging a cellar in the town of Poppersville.
Join Mike and his machine on an adventure of resilience, dedication, and hard work!
MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL 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 Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, 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 Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel reading comprehension questions focus on:
- retell
- analyzing character
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- goal setting
- loyalty
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- onomatopoeia
- ellipses
- exclamation marks
MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL 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 Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel?
- Lexile® Measure: 580L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 28 – 30
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.2
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Virginia Lee Burton.
What genre is Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel?
It is a classics, fairy tales, folk tales, and fables 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.
