Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Christmas Owl 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 kindness, this The Christmas Owl picture book by Gideon Sterer and Ellen Kalish 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 The Christmas Owl Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Christmas Owl. 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 The Christmas Owl reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE CHRISTMAS OWL SUMMARY
Gideon Sterer’s book The Christmas Owl, tells the true story about an owl that was found in the branches of Rockefeller Christmas Tree. Little Owl lived happily in the branches of a very big tree. She enjoyed playing outside with her friends. One day, Little Owl noticed that the town was changing. Lights were being strung and houses were being decorated. Her friends explained that it was Christmas, although no one was too sure exactly what that meant.
As Little Owl flew back to her tree one day, she noticed a group of people standing around it. As she sat among the branches, the people tied up the tree, cut it down, and loaded it onto a truck. For three days, Little Owl was stuck in the Christmas tree as it made a long, cold drive into the city. When it finally stopped moving and the branches opened up, a worker found Little Owl in the tree.
The worker brought Little Owl to meet Ellen, who worked at a wildlife center. Ellen took care of Little Owl who was too weak to fly. She gave Little Owl food and x-rays. Little Owl stayed with Ellen until she was strong enough to fly home.
That Christmas night, before flying back home, Little Owl flew back over the city. This time it did not look so scary. Little Owl noticed the people hugging and holding hands. They enjoyed being around one another. That’s when Little Owl realized what Christmas was all about and she flew home to reunite with her forest friends.
THE CHRISTMAS OWL LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 600+ 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 Christmas Owl, 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 Christmas Owl reading comprehension questions focus on:
- summarizing/retelling
- analyzing illustrations
- analyzing setting
- identifying theme, message, moral
- making predictions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- kindness
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- verb tense
- plural nouns
- punctuation
- proper nouns
THE CHRISTMAS OWL 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 Christmas Owl?
- Lexile® Measure: N/A
- Guided Reading Level: N/A
- DRA Level: N/A
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): N/A
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Gideon Sterer and Ellen Kalish. It was illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki.
What genre is The Christmas Owl?
It is a nonfiction 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.
