Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Day The Crayons Came Home 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 making good choices, feelings and taking ownership, this The Day The Crayons Came Home picture book by Drew Daywalt 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 Day The Crayons Came Home Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Day The Crayons Came Home. 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 Day The Crayons Came Home reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE DAY THE CRAYONS CAME HOME SUMMARY
The book, The Day the Crayons Came Home, by Drew Daywalt will have students laughing! It tells the story of a boy named Duncan and his missing crayons. One day, Duncan received a stack of postcards and discovered each was from one of his crayons!
The crayons have left the box for different reasons: maroon was lost in the couch, pea green wanted to see the world, and neon red was left at a hotel. Despite being gone for awhile, the crayons are all ready to come home for various reasons. When Duncan does collect all the crayons, he finds they no longer fit in the box! To make them feel at home, he makes them their own crayon fort!
This adorable story will have students laughing as the crayons share their challenges faced outside the box.
THE DAY THE CRAYONS CAME HOME 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 Day The Crayons Came Home, 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 Day The Crayons Came Home reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making predictions
- summarize/retell
- analyzing character
- plot (problem-solution)
- making connections
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- making good choices
- feelings
- taking ownership
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- pural nouns
- compound words
- contractions
- homophones
THE DAY THE CRAYONS CAME HOME 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 Day The Crayons Came Home?
- 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 Drew Daywalt. It was illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.
What genre is The Day The Crayons Came Home?
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.
