Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Whistle for Willie will love this post. It includes resource recommendations, teaching ideas, and information about the book. All of this will help you plan an engaging interactive read aloud based on this book.
With themes of perseverance and goal setting, this Whistle for Willie picture book by Ezra Jack Keats is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too!
Engage Your Students with Whistle for Willie Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Whistle for Willie.
- 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 Whistle for Willie reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
WHISTLE FOR WILLIE SUMMARY
Whistle for Willie is about a boy named Peter who wants to learn how to whistle. He sees a boy whistle and his dog come running after him and Peter wants to be able to do that with his dog Willie. Peter tries to whistle but nothing comes out.
Throughout the story Peter practices and practices how to whistle. At the end of the book, Peter finally learns how to whistle after all of his hard work. Peter whistles for Willie, and Willie comes running.
WHISTLE FOR WILLIE 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 Whistle for Willie, 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 Whistle for Willie reading comprehension questions focus on:
- identifying genre
- summarize / retell
- making connections
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- perseverance
- goal setting
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- ellipses
- quotation marks
WHISTLE FOR WILLIE 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 Whistle for Willie?
- Lexile® Measure: AD490L
- Guided Reading Level: L
- DRA Level: 20 – 24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats.
What genre is Whistle for Willie?
It is a realistic 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.
