Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Gruffalo 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 problem solving, friendship and bravery, this The Gruffalo picture book by Julia Donaldson 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 Gruffalo Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Gruffalo. 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 Gruffalo reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE GRUFFALO SUMMARY
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson is about a small mouse who goes for a walk through the forest. During his walk, the mouse runs into several larger animals that want to make a meal of him. The clever mouse tricks each animal by saying he is off to have lunch with a gruffalo, a made up creature that scares each animal off.
To the mouses surprise, he encounters the gruffalo on his walk. With quick thinking, the mouse takes the gruffalo on his walk and introduces him to the other animals. In the end, the mouse scares the gruffalo off and is able to enjoy a snack.
Students will love this quick thinking mouse and his ability to trick the larger animals. The story has great rhythm, and students will enjoy listening to the rhyming words throughout.
THE GRUFFALO 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 Gruffalo, 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 Gruffalo reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing character
- making predictions
- visualizing
- making connections
- sequencing
- cause and effect
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- problem solving
- friendship
- bravery
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- homophones
- contractions
- verb tense
- adjectives
THE GRUFFALO 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 Gruffalo?
- 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 by Julia Donaldson. It was illustrated by Axel Scheffler.
What genre is The Gruffalo ?
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 26 pages long.
