Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Paul Bunyan 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 compassion, this Paul Bunyan picture book by Steven Kellogg 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 Paul Bunyan Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Paul Bunyan. 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 Paul Bunyan reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
PAUL BUNYAN SUMMARY
Paul Bunyan was born in the state of Maine and was known for being the biggest, strongest, and smartest baby. From an early age, Paul was interested in his family’s logging business. In fact, he would walk around the neighborhood collecting trees, but his neighbors were not happy about that. To prevent further problems, Paul’s parents put his cradle in the harbor. However, Paul was rocking so much it caused even more problems. That’s when the family decided to move to the backwoods.
Paul loved his life in the backwoods. He enjoyed being outside and playing with the animals. Paul never lost his passion for logging and left home when he was seventeen to start a traveling logging company. Paul always had a creative way of solving problems he came across while logging. He built houses on wheels, a gigantic flapjack griddle large enough to feed his whole crew, and colored sunglasses for his ox who was depressed during a blizzard.
During his journey logging throughout the west, Paul became known as a great lumberman. He was even known for creating the Great Lakes and the Grand Canyon. Paul Bunyan was not only a great lumbermaan, but he was compassionate, creative, and strong.
PAUL BUNYAN 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 Paul Bunyan, 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 Paul Bunyan reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing charcater
- analyzing illustrations
- cause and effect
- making predictions
- summarizing/retelling
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- compassion
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- plural nouns
- homophones
- helping verbs
- pronouns
PAUL BUNYAN 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 Paul Bunyan?
- Lexile® Measure: 1030L
- Guided Reading Level: T
- DRA Level: 44
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 5.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Steven Kellogg. It was illustrated by Steven Kellogg.
What genre is Paul Bunyan?
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.
