Teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Couch Potato will love this post. It includes the book’s summary, teaching points, resource recommendations, and more.
With a theme of mindfulness, The Couch Potato picture book by Jory John is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will become a favorite in your classroom too!
Engage Your Students with The Couch Potato Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Couch Potato.
- 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 Couch Potato reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE COUCH POTATO SUMMARY
The Couch Potato is happy with his life. He spends all day on the couch, and doesn’t have to get up for anything. He loves his comfortable couch and is happy that he never has to leave. The Couch Potato has gadgets and devices that can do everything for him and he doesn’t have to meet up with friends in person! He can see them through the screens. The Couch Potato thought that this was the perfect life.
One day, a new device was delivered to The Couch Potato. When he went to plug it in, the power went out! For the first time, he had nothing to do! The Couch Potato decided to take his dog outside for a walk. That’s when he noticed how bright it was and took in all the colors. His walk continued and he heard the birds chirping and noticed the stillness of nature. The Couch Potato enjoyed his time outside and relaxed in the park next a big tree. He took in his surroundings: the clouds, view and sunset.
When he finally returned home, he realized how much of his life he was spending on the couch. In that moment, The Couch Potato decided to spend more time outside. He played outside with his friends more often and took a break from all the technology. The Couch Potato realized he was so much more: entertaining, kind, and smart. But at the end of a long day one thing stayed the same, he still enjoys relaxing on the couch.
THE COUCH POTATO 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 Couch Potato, 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 Couch Potato reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- compare and contrast
- analyzing character
- making connections
- cause and effect
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- mindfulness
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- suffixes
- compound words
- interjections
- onomatopoeia
THE COUCH POTATO 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 Couch Potato?
- Lexile® Measure: AD550L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 28
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Jory John. It was illustrated by Pete Oswald.
What genre is The Couch Potato?
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.
