Giant Pandas by Gail Gibbons Interactive Read-Aloud Activities

This picture book companion is a complete supplemental resource for the book Giant Pandas by Gail Gibbons.

With 22 print-and-go reading activities to choose from, this resource is ideal for customizing learning to your student's specific needs and academic abilities. Students will apply listening and note-taking skills, investigate different types of pandas, compare & contrast, make inferences and connections, learn and apply new vocabulary, identify and gain information using text and graphic features, answer questions that require them to think beyond the text, and so much more!

Students will love the engaging and fun activities, and you will appreciate the time saved hunting for high-level resources to teach reading concepts that students frequently struggle with. The activities provided are designed to enable students to apply higher-level thinking skills, encourage them to provide text evidence to support their thinking, and challenge them to express their own thoughts and/or perspectives.

⭐️This Resource Includes:⭐️

• Making Predictions: Before reading, students will make predictions about the book.

• “Giant Pandas” Student Notes Booklet: While reading the story, students will take notes in their booklets. This activity includes 12 half-pages (ANSWER KEY included).

• Print the booklets double-sided and select the printing option, "flip on the short side."

• Giant Panda Diagram: Students will label the giant panda diagram using the words in the word bank (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Word Scramble: Students use the details from the book to unscramble the words (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Giant Panda Growth Timeline: Students will complete the timeline by describing what the panda looks like and what they can do at each stage of their life (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Fact or Fiction: Students determine whether the details are facts from the story or made-up (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• True or False (bubble answers ONLY): Students read the statements and determine whether they are true (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• True or False (bubble answers & correct the false statement): Students determine if the statements are true or false, and rewrite the false statements to make them true (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Text Organization: Students read the main ideas, find three supporting details for each one, and select the text structure the author used to organize the information on the given pages (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• Cause & Effect: Students match up the causes to the effects (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

• 3-2-1: Students describe three characteristics of giant pandas, give two reasons that the giant panda population is getting smaller, and choose one word that best describes giant pandas and explain why.

• Thinking About the Text: Students will answer the questions about the story & include examples from the text to support their answers.

• Giant Panda ABCs: Students write words or phrases that begin with each letter of the alphabet to show what they learned about giant pandas.

• Word Search Puzzle: Students use the clues to fill in the puzzle. Words can go across or down. Letters are shared when the words intersect (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

Long Research Project on Giant Pandas: Students conduct research to learn more about giant pandas. Includes the following:

• p. 1: KWL graphic organizer

• p. 2: Describe Giant Pandas - CAN - HAVE -ARE

• p. 3: Animal Species - Habitat - Diet

• p. 4: Fun Facts

• p. 5: New Vocabulary

• P. 6: Research Summary Report

• One-Page Research Project on Giant Pandas: Students conduct research to learn more about giant pandas and complete a one-page report with facts regarding the habitat, features, diet, movement, and interesting facts.

• Panda Roll & Research: Students roll a die to see which panda species they will research to learn more about. Then, they research using teacher-approved websites and informational texts to find information to answer the guiding questions.

This resource is for extension read-aloud activities only. The book is not included.