Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Nightsong 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 courage and mindfulness, this Nightsong picture book by Ari Berk 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 Nightsong Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Nightsong. 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 Nightsong reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
NIGHTSONG SUMMARY
The story, Nightsong by Ari Berk and Loren Long, is about a bat named Chiro who is nervous to go out and fly on his own at night. Chiro says that it is too dark and that sometimes he has a hard time seeing. His mother tells him that to help him see, he needs to use his good sense.
Chiro asks his mother what his good sense is, and she says it is the song that he sings out into the world and that it will help guide him through.
When Chiro flies out of the cave, he is nervous and frightened. He remembers to use his good sense and travels across the world following his nightsong.
Chiro notices many different sounds that nature makes and follows his song back home when the sun starts to come back up. Chiro returns to his mother and tells her of all the great things he saw
NIGHTSONG 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 Nightsong, 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 Nightsong reading comprehension questions focus on:
- asking and answering questions
- point of view
- visualizing
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- courage
- mindfulness
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- pronouns
- quotation marks
NIGHTSONG 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 Nightsong?
- Lexile® Measure: AD790L
- Guided Reading Level: S
- DRA Level: 42-44
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 4.7-5
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Ari Berk. It was illustrated by Loren Long.
What genre is Nightsong ?
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 48 pages long.
