Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates 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 friendship and expectations, this We Don’t Eat Our Classmates picture book by Ryan Higgins 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 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of We Don’t Eat Our Classmates. 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 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
WE DON'T EAT OUR CLASSMATES SUMMARY
It’s time for Penelope Rex’s first day of school and she is nervous! She has her new backpack with ponies and tuna sandwiches her father made her. However, when she gets to school she is surprised to find out her classmates are children! Penelope thinks children are so delicious and she eats them! Her teacher has to explain that they don’t eat their classmates. Even though Penelope tries her best to make friends, everyone is afraid of her. Penelope sees that all of her classmates are making friends and she starts to feel lonely.
She decides to try and become friends with the class goldfish, but it bites her! This helps Penelope learn what it feels like to be someone’s snack and she loses her appetite for children. She eventually starts to make friends with her classmates and enjoy school.
WE DON’T EAT OUR CLASSMATES 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 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, 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 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing character
- making predictions
- summarize / retell
- plot | problem – solution
- identifying genre
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- friendship
- expectations
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- compound words
- synonyms
- capitalization
- verb tense
WE DON’T EAT OUR CLASSMATES 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 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates?
- Lexile® Measure: AD500L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Ryan Higgins.
What genre is We Don’t Eat Our Classmates?
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 48 pages long.
