Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Nerdy Birdy 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 friendship, empathy and teasing, this Nerdy Birdy picture book by Aaron Reynolds 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 Nerdy Birdy Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Nerdy Birdy. 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 Nerdy Birdy reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
NERDY BIRDY SUMMARY
This book tells the story of Nerdy Birdy, who has small wings and big glasses. Nerdy Birdy enjoys reading, video games, and reading about video games. He admires the other birds like eagles, cardinals and robins but they are not kind to him. Nerdy Birdy feels lonely. One day, another bird approaches Nerdy Birdy and says he should hang out with them. Nerdy Birdy is introduced to a whole group of birds that share similar interests to him and they become friends. When Vulture moves to town and is teased by the eagles, cardinals and robins, Nerdy Birdy tries to include him in the group. Nerdy Birdy is surprised when the other nerdy birds do not want to be friends with Vulture. Nerdy Birdy is able to empathize with Vulture and the two become good friends despite their differences.
Students will love this sweet story about Nerdy Birdy’s journey to friendship.
NERDY BIRDY 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 Nerdy Birdy, 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 Nerdy Birdy reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- comparing and contrasting
- analyzing character
- making connections
- plot (problem – solution)
- ask and answer questions
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- friendship
- empathy
- teasing
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- suffixes
- punctuation
- plural nouns
- interjections
NERDY BIRDY 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


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BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for Nerdy Birdy?
- Lexile® Measure: 480L
- 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 Aaron Reynolds. It was illustrated by Matt Davies.
What genre is Nerdy Birdy?
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.