Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Ugly Duckling 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 resiliency, individuality, gratitude and bullying/teasing, this The Ugly Duckling picture book by Hans Christian Anderson 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 Ugly Duckling Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Ugly Duckling. 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 Ugly Duckling reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE UGLY DUCKLING SUMMARY
In the midst of a beautiful summer day, a duck rests upon her six eggs. Five of them were small, while one was oddly shaped.
Once the eggs hatched, it was clear that the oddly shaped egg contained an ugly duckling. Other ducks made fun of him, hens pecked at him, and his siblings were mean to him. Finally, he ran away from home, venturing to a cottage in the woods. There, he stayed with an elderly lady, a cat, and a hen. Still, there, he felt out of place and left to venture in the pond.
That is, until winter came. He saw beautiful swans flying above him, but he dared not to follow out of fear. He was freezing and, with a few events, just survived the brutal weather.
Once spring came, he joined the whirring birds flying. He was amazed by these creatures. That is, until a girl noticed that he was the best looking of all the birds in the pond. He recognized that without all of his struggles, he would never had known what true happiness was. And this- this was exactly it.
THE UGLY DUCKLING 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 Ugly Duckling, 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 Ugly Duckling reading comprehension questions focus on:
- sequencing
- analyzing setting
- making connections
- authors purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- resiliency
- individuality
- gratitude
- bullying/teasing
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- synonyms
- suffixes
THE UGLY DUCKLING 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 Ugly Duckling?
- Lexile® Measure: AD650L
- Guided Reading Level: P
- DRA Level: 36
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Hans Christian Anderson. It was illustrated by Pinkney.
What genre is The Ugly Duckling ?
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.
