Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Those Darn Squirrels will love this post. It includes resource recommendations, teaching ideas, and information about the book.
With themes of taking ownership and compassion, this Those Darn Squirrels picture book by Adam Rubin is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will quickly become one of your and your students‘ favorite fall books too!
Engage Your Students with Those Darn Squirrels Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Those Darn Squirrels.
- 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 Those Darn Squirrels reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS SUMMARY
Old Man Fookwire is as old as they come. He doesn’t like puppies, and he doesn’t like pie. One thing he does love are birds. To him, birds are interesting and they keep him company.
One day, he decides to continually feed the birds to stop them from migrating in the winter. But with food, comes the squirrels. Old Man Fookwire tries to stop the squirrels from eating all the food from the birds, but they keep strategizing and finding ways to get it.
Eventually, the birds migrate and the old man is miserable. The squirrels begin to feel guilty, so they try to find ways to cheer him up. They give him money and arcade coins, but he is still sad. Then, they disguise themselves as birds and get a laugh out of Old Man Fookwire. Maybe these squirrels aren’t so bad after all!
THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS 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 Those Darn Squirrels, 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 Those Darn Squirrels reading comprehension questions focus on:
- retell
- analyze character
- author’s purpose
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- compassion
- taking ownership
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- exclamation point
- subject/predicate
THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS 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 Those Darn Squirrels?
- Lexile® Measure: AD600L
- Guided Reading Level: O
- DRA Level: 30
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Adam Rubin. It was illustrated by Daniel Salmieri.
What genre is Those Darn Squirrels?
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.
