Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Great Turkey Race 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 sportsmanship, this The Great Turkey Race picture book by Steve Metzger 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 Great Turkey Race Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Great Turkey Race. 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 Great Turkey Race reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE GREAT TURKEY RACE SUMMARY
The Great Turkey Race takes place on a farm just before Thanksgiving. While playing hide-and-seek with his friends, Ollie the turkey overheard Farmer Joe talk about picking a special turkey to be the Thanksgiving turkey. Excited, Ollie ran to tell his friends Cassie and Wing. Of course, each turkey thought that they should be the Thanksgiving turkey. The three friends decided to compete in field day events to earn medals. The turkey with the most medals would be the Thanksgiving turkey.
When the games started, Wing was not playing fair. He bragged and even cheated during some of the events. Ollie and Cassie were feeling angry with Wing. While resting, Cassie overheard Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate talking about the tasty Thanksgiving turkey. The three turkeys panicked at the thought of being eaten for Thanksgiving so they made a plan. On the last field day event, the high jump, the three friends jumped the fence surrounding the farm. As a result, Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate were left to eat vegetable stew for their Thanksgiving dinner.
THE GREAT TURKEY RACE 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 Great Turkey Race, 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 Great Turkey Race reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing character
- analyzing setting
- cause and effect
- making predictions
- sequencing
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- sportsmanship
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- proper nouns
- action verbs
- plural nouns
- suffixes
THE GREAT TURKEY RACE 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 Great Turkey Race?
- 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 Steve Metzger. It was illustrated by Jim Paillot.
What genre is The Great Turkey Race?
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 34 pages long.
