Books,activities, and lesson plans 5

Travel Buddy Project
Activities for Charlie, the Caterpillar by Dom DeLuise

These activity plans are from Cyndi Kelley's, 3rd grade class at Glenwood Elementary School in Charleston, West Virginia

Day 1
Discuss friendship. Brainstorm characteristics of a good friend. Think about your best friend, how many of these characteristics do they have? Think about the way you threat your friend. How many characteristics do you think you have.
Read "Charlie the Caterpillar" out loud to the class. Discuss the way the animals treated Charlie and the way he treated them at the end of the story.

Day 2
Have a list of these characteristics typed up.
Discuss which characteristic is the most important. Have students take a poll of several people at home to find out which characteristic they think is the most important for a friend to have.
Discuss dialog as written in books and stories. Reread part or all of the book. Have students raise their hand when someone is talking, lower it when no one is talking.

Day 3
Use results of poll to make a classroom chart listing all of the characteristics. Discuss the results of the poll.
Copy one page from the book (such as the one with monkeys playing cards). Have students tell you how they can tell that someone is talking. Have them underline what is being said.

Day 4
Give students a typed copy of a page of "Charlie the Caterpillar", or use one on the overhead projector. Together, decide what is being said and fill in the correct punctuation.
Art Activity
Use 5 or 6 1 inch pom pom balls and glue them together to create a colorful caterpillar. Add wiggly eyes and pipe cleaners for antennae.

Day 5
Give the students a typed copy of one page from the book. Have them fill in the correct punctuation. This could be use for assessment.
Have students draw, color or paint a picture of a butterfly. Encourage them to give the picture to their best friend.
If this unit is done in the spring, it goes great with the study of insects.