Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Turk And Runt 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 and advocation, this Turk And Runt picture book by Lisa Wheeler 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 Turk And Runt Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Turk And Runt. 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 Turk And Runt reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
TURK AND RUNT SUMMARY
Turk and Runt tells the story of two turkeys that are brothers. Turk’s parents are so proud of him because he is big and strong. They imagine that he will be a dancer or football player. Runt however, is much smaller and no one in the family ever listens to him.
As Thanksgiving approaches, people visit the farm to pick out their turkey. The parents think the visitors admiring Turk want him to perform in a ballet or join a football team. No one listens to Runt’s warnings about Turk becoming someone’s dinner. He acts wildly and sickly to scare the visitors away and protect his brother. When an older woman arrives and decides Runt is the perfect size for her, Runt and Turk must work together to stop the old lady from taking him home.
Students will laugh at this silly Thanksgiving story about two very different brothers.
TURK AND RUNT 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 Turk And Runt, 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 Turk And Runt reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- visualizing
- comparing and contrasting
- analyzing character
- plot (problem-solution)
- ask and answer questions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- problem solving
- advocation
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- proper nouns
- pronouns
- adverbs
- suffixes
TURK AND RUNT 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 Turk and Runt?
- Lexile® Measure: 500-525
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 24-28
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.8
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Lisa Wheeler. It was illustrated by Frank Ansley.
What genre is Turk and Runt?
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.
