Teaching reading comprehension to young readers can sometimes feel like a chore, but it doesn’t have to! We love reading fun books in the classroom and having engaging activities to go along with them is important. These hands-on activities will help students digest key concepts from the book while having fun! As we worked on our bat unit I knew that Stellaluna by Janell Cannon was the perfect book. Here’s the fun Stellaluna activities we do after reading the book.
Stellaluna is a charming tale of a baby bat that is separated from her mother. She comes across a nest of baby birds and is taken in and raised like them. Stellaluna faces some hardships like eating bugs, sleeping upright and not doing typical bat-like things! She struggles to be like the tiny nest of birds. Finally, Stellaluna is reunited with her mom and her bat colony. She learns to love being a bat again, but also learns the unique differences between birds and bats, and why it is ok to be different!
This book really teachers about friendship, overlooking difference, finding common ground with friends and embracing what makes you unique! It is also illustrated beautifully! Students will enjoy this book and the best part is, I have lots of fun activities to share to help them comprehend and learn more about the special story the book is telling.
Stellaluna Vocabulary Activity
One of the things I love about book studies is the ability to enrich the vocabulary of my students. So often, these read aloud books contain words I would probably never teach on my own. That’s why our vocabulary anchor chart is one of the first things we do after reading the book.
I always begin by reading the book all the way through as a read aloud. But then we start digging into some of the unkown words from the book. I like to make a vocabulary anchor chart with both pictures and definitions to help students remember the word meaning.
I also love to add a vocabulary worksheet activity to go along with the anchor chart. This will help students identify and understand new words from the book. This particular activity is a great independent activity students can work on after we complete the anchor chart together. It is a great way for them to review the word meaning and start to remember those new words.
Stellaluna opens the door for some amazing new vocabulary words. Words like fruit bat, embarrassing, clumsy and delicious will start to fill the oral language of students as they learn these words. It’s an amazing thing to watch!
After completing our vocabulary activities we read the book again. I love stopping as we read to remind students of the meaning of the words as we come across them. It’s amazing how much deeper their comprehension goes after the vocabulary activities.
Interactive Anchor Chart
After our second reading of the book we jump right into our reading comprehension anchor chart. This interactive anchor chart is also so fun and engaging for students to work on. It also really helps them to dig into the story and learn more about the story they just read.
These anchor charts are great to do together as a class. In this anchor chart we focus on the main character Stellaluna and how she changes through the course of the story. This activity provides opportunities to work on story elements, character traits and comparing skills.
Students will also work on identifying the main activities that happened in the beginning and end of the story. This lays the foundation for students to learn about summarizing in the future. You can use the picture cards and sort and glue them into their proper place.
Filling in the bat wings with character traits is a fun way to talk about the main character. And . . . students are so excited to see that their white crayon shows up on black paper!
Stellaluna Compare and Contrast Activity
Understanding the characters in the story can play a big role in reading comprehension. I like doing a compare and contrast activity to help students dive deeper into the characters and their unique traits. In this activity students will compare and contrast Stellaluna with the birds. They will dig into their emotions, experiences, feelings, thoughts and actions.
This Venn Diagram graphic organizer is a great way for students to organize their comparisons. Depending on the grade level or time of year you teach this, it just might be the first exposure to a Venn Diagram. I love to show students how the circles overlap and provide the perfect place for the similarities. Labeling each space is really helpful too!
They will list out the bats characteristics in the bat bubble, the bird characteristics in the bird bubble and then in the middle they will focus on their similarities. Help them brainstorm all the different traits they can put down for each category. This will really help them learn more about the characters in the story!
Stellaluna Sequence of Events
Sequencing is an important reading comprehension and a skill we can work on with almost every story! Simple questioning as you discuss a book is a great place to start. Students also love these cut and past sequencing activities. One of the biggest parts of understanding a story is realizing the sequence of events. This activity is great to get students involved talking about what happened during the story, when it happened and why.
I also like to ask them about what their favorite part of the story is. Then we do a little role play and talk about what we would do if we were the characters in the story. It is a great way to connect with the story at a different level.
Other Stellaluna Book Activities
100 Chart Mystery Picture
All students love a good surprise mystery, so this activity is so much fun! It’s also a great way to connect some math skills to the book. Students will use their number and logic skill to fill in each block on the worksheet with the correct color. They don’t know what character they are coloring, is it a bat or a bird? Once they finish, they will have the character Stellaluna from the book! This is perfect for morning work, a math center or even to use as an early finisher activity.
Stellaluna Directed Drawing
I love, love, love completing directed drawings with my students. Not only is it a fun way to get in some art time, but it is also a great way to practice following directions. The students are always so proud of their drawings and creations. They start the activity positive that they cannot draw and by the end they are beaming with pride.
Grab these Stellaluna Book Activities
You can grab all of these Stellaluna book activities to use in your classroom. Whether you do a full unit on bats, a book study or just a day of fun near Halloween, you can’t go wrong with this resource pack. Just visit the Emily Education store to grab your Stellaluna Book Activities.
Save These Stellaluna Activities for Later!
Save these interactive book activities to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can quickly and easily find them whenever you need!
