Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Box Turtle will love this post. It includes resource recommendations, information about the book, and teaching ideas. You’ll have what you need for your next interactive read aloud lesson!
With a theme of self esteem, this The Box Turtle picture book by Vanessa Roeder is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too!
Engage Your Students with The Box Turtle Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Box Turtle.
- 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 The Box Turtle reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE BOX TURTLE SUMMARY
Terrance is a box turtle that was born without a shell. His parents gave him a box to wear instead and reminded him he is much more than a shell. Terrance had always been proud of his shell because it kept him dry, safe and was big enough to share with friends. One day, some other turtles told Terrance that his box was weird. That’s when Terrance decided he would go out and find something new.
Terrance tried about many different boxes for a shell. He tried a mailbox, flower box, hat box, boombox, and jack in the box. However, none of the boxes he tried seemed to fit right. Terrance’s hermit crab friend took off his own shell to give to Terrance. In that moment, he realized his friend was more than his shell, and he could be too.
Terrance and his friends went back to get his old box but found it had been broken. The friends worked together to fix it and even decorate it. When the other turtles called his box weird, Terrance didn’t care. He was happy because he finally realized he was really more than just a shell.
THE BOX TURTLE 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 The Box Turtle, 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 The Box Turtle reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- analyzing character
- plot | problem – solution
- cause and effect
- identifying theme | message | moral
- summarize / retell
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- self esteem
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- action verbs
- suffixes
- adjectives
- antonyms
THE BOX TURTLE 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 The Box Turtle?
- Lexile® Measure: AD510L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 24 – 28
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.7 – 2.9
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Vanessa Roeder.
What genre is The Box Turtle?
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.
