Jabuti the Tortoise Reader Response Activities

This picture book companion is the perfect resource to accompany the book Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon by Gerald McDermott. It includes 34 print-and-go reading activities to choose from, making this resource ideal for customizing learning to your student's specific needs and academic abilities.

Students will investigate characters, identify story elements, determine the theme, practice plotting story events, compare & contrast, make predictions, inferences, & connections, answer questions that require them to think beyond the text, and 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:⭐️

• ◾ Elements of a Trickster Tale Anchor Chart or Notes Handout: Color and B&W

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

  • ◾ Elements of a Trickster Tale: Students fill in the chart with the details of the story that characterize it as a trickster tale.

  • ◾ Trickster Tale Tidbits: Students will answer the questions with details from the story that proves it's a trickster tale.

  • ◾ Story Elements: Students fill in the boxes with words & pictures to represent the story elements.

  • ◾ Sequencing: Students will retell & illustrate the important parts of the story.

    • ◾ Recalling events in Chronological Order: Students describe and illustrate four major events in the story in chronological order.

    • ◾ Summary: Students complete the Somebody, Wanted, Because, But, So graphic organizer and write a summary of the story.

    • ◾ Story Event Sort: Students will describe a scene or event from the story that fits into each of the categories & explain how the event made them feel & how it relates to the category.

    • ◾ Making Inferences: Students use clues & schema to make inferences while reading the story.

    • ◾ Making Connections: Students make connections to an event from the story.

      • ◾ Author's Message: Students describe four important events from the story in chronological order and answer the questions about the author's message.

      • ◾ Character Inside & Out (Jabuti): Students include details from the story to describe what the character says, thinks, does, and feels.

        • ◾ Character Inside & Out (Vulture): Students include details from the story to describe what the character says, thinks, does, and feels.

        • ◾ Character Feelings (Jabuti): Students describe how the character's feelings change throughout the story & give examples of the events that cause them to feel the way they do.

        • ◾ Character Feelings (Vulture): Students describe how the character's feelings change throughout the story & give examples of the events that cause them to feel the way they do.

        • ◾ Character Development (Jabuti): Students select the character traits that best describe the character at different times throughout the story and provide examples from the book to support each character trait.

        • ◾ Character Development (Vulture): Students select the character traits that best describe the character at different times throughout the story and provide examples from the book to support each character trait.

        • ◾ Character Change (Jabuti): Students will explain how the character changed from the beginning to the end of the story and describe the events that caused the change to happen.

        • ◾ Character Change (Vulture): Students will explain how the character changed from the beginning to the end of the story and describe the events that caused the change to happen.

      • ◾ Sketch a Scene From the Story: Students draw a scene from the story & explain why it's important to the plot.

      • ◾ Setting Influences the Plot: Students will draw a scene from the story that takes place in one of the settings and write about what happened there and why it was important to the plot.

      • ◾ Setting the Scene: Students identify three different settings in the story and explain how they know that the setting changed.

      • ◾ Theme: Students answer the questions to determine which theme best fits the story and provide text evidence to support their choice.

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

      • ◾ Compare & Contrast: Students answer the questions to compare & contrast Jabuti's tricks to Vulture's trick.

        • ◾ Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle: Students use the clues and the word bank to fill in the crossword puzzle (ANSWER KEY INCLUDED).

        • ◾ Antonyms All Around: Students find the antonyms, words with opposite meanings, in the text provided from the story and use a dictionary, or scan the QR code, to find more opposite words for the antonyms they found in the text.

  • ◾ Wait... There's More!: Students will write about what happens next in the story.

  • ◾ Book Review: Students color in the stars to rate how much they enjoyed the book and draw a new cover & their favorite character from the story. Then, they will explain why other kids should or should not read it.

  • ◾ Write an Origin Story: Students will plan and write their own origin story. The following pages are included in this activity:

    • ◾ My Trickster Tale Planning Sheet: Students use the planning sheet to organize their own origin story. They select an animal that they think is special and write a story about how the animal got its voice, coloring, nose, tail, speed, or other special features or abilities.

    • ◾ My Trickster Tale Cover: Students design a book cover for their origin story.

    • ◾ Lined Writing Paper: Three different layouts are included.

💡Need ideas for different ways you can implement these activities?

• ◾ Focus on different reading skills each day for targeted instruction, and have students complete a corresponding printable to check for understanding.

• ◾ During centers, students can independently read the story again and complete an activity that reviews a previously taught concept.

• ◾ Work with students on a reading concept they struggle with during guided reading or strategy groups.

• ◾ Students work with a partner or in literature circles to complete additional reading activities.

The book is not included.

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