Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Night Before Summer Vacation 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 teamwork, this The Night Before Summer Vacation picture book by Natasha Wing 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 Night Before Summer Vacation Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Night Before Summer Vacation. 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 Night Before Summer Vacation reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER VACATION SUMMARY
Natasha Wing’s book The Night Before Summer Vacation tells the story of a family preparing for a trip. Everyone is excited on the night before they leave on vacation. The father has made a list of everything they need to bring while the mom packs everything they’ll need for s’mores. The children help bring everything out to the car: helmets, a canoe and oars, a raft and bike. They bring suitcases down from the attic and pack their summer clothes inside.
Once everything is together, the family starts to pack the car. They stuff everything inside the shell on top until it is ready to burst! After packing the family eats dinner ands looks through old scrapbooks of past vacations before heading off to bed. The next morning, everyone wakes up early! The car is packed and they rush out before it bursts! However, as they’re driving down the street the little girl realizes they’ve left the dog at home! The family must turn around to get Pete before driving off again!
This book is a great way to kick off summer vacation!
THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER VACATION 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 Night Before Summer Vacation, 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 Night Before Summer Vacation reading comprehension questions focus on:
- cause and effect
- making connections
- rhyme, rhythm and repetition
- sequencing
- summarizing/retelling
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- teamwork
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- plural nouns
- compound words
- prepositions
- time order words
THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER VACATION 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 Night Before Summer Vacation?
- Lexile® Measure: AD530L
- Guided Reading Level: M
- DRA Level: 24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.4
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Natasha Wing. It was illustrated by Julie Durrell.
What genre is The Night Before Summer Vacation?
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.
