Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Red: A Crayon’s Story 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 and diversity, this Red: A Crayon’s Story picture book by Michael Hall 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 Red: A Crayon’s Story Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Red: A Crayon’s Story. 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 Red: A Crayon’s Story reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
RED: A CRAYON'S STORY SUMMARY
Red is a crayon who has a very hard time drawing red pictures. His label says red, so even though he only draws in blue, everyone in the story tries to get him to draw red pictures. Some people think he needs more practice, and some people think he is just being lazy. No matter how hard he tries though, his red pictures always come out as blue.
One day Red meets Berry. She asks him to draw her an ocean for her boat. When he makes a beautiful ocean, he discovers that he is really blue. Everyone is amazed by the blue pictures that he draws.
Students will learn about identity and diversity as they hear a story about a crayon who was always supposed to be blue.
RED: A CRAYON’S STORY 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 Red: A Crayon’s Story, 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 Red: A Crayon’s Story reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarize / retell
- analyzing illustrations
- making connections
- author’s purpose
- ask and answer questions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- friendship
- diversity
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- contractions
- types of sentences
RED: A CRAYON’S STORY 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 Red: A Crayon’s Story?
- Lexile® Measure: AD380L
- Guided Reading Level: K
- DRA Level: 16 – 18
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.1 – 2.2
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Michael Hall.
What genre is Red: A Crayon’s Story?
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.
