Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Gruffalo’s Child 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 courage, emotions, and perseverance, this The Gruffalo’s Child 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’s Child Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Gruffalo’s Child. 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’s Child reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE GRUFFALO'S CHILD SUMMARY
One stormy night, the Gruffalo reminded his daughter about the terrible mouse out in the deep, dark wood. This big, scary mouse has a long and scaly tail, is terribly strong, and has eyes of fire. And with that, they both fell asleep by the fire.
Feeling curious and bored, while her dad was sleeping, the Gruffalo’s Child went out to explore, looking for this so-called terrible mouse. Each page of this story provides descriptive detail, opportunities to make predictions, and fun rhythm that will keep students engaged! Will she ever find this terrible mouse?
THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD 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’s Child, 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’s Child reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- rhyme, rhythm, repetition
- sequencing
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- courage
- emotions
- perseverance
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- quotation marks
- contractions
THE GRUFFALO’S CHILD 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’s Child?
- Lexile® Measure: AD440L
- Guided Reading Level: K-M
- DRA Level: 20-24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.3-2.5
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’s Child ?
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 32 pages long.
