Flip Flops, Beach Chairs, & Great Reads: Penguin on Vacation

Welcome to The Reading Crew's summer mentor text link up!  You will find books and free lesson resources for all ages in this hop.  The chosen texts are perfect for use at the end of the school year or if you are teaching summer school.  You will find the links to all participating blogs at the end of this post, as well as a Rafflecopter to enter for your chance to win an Amazon gift card, so make sure to read all the way through!

The book I chose is Penguin on Vacation by Salina Yoon.  The text would be most appropriate for grades PK-1.  It tells the simple and cute story of a penguin who is tired of the snow and doing the same activities all the time, so he decides to go some place new for vacation.  He reaches the beach by floating on a piece of ice but isn't sure what to do when he arrives.  He learns that he can't ski, sled, or skate in the sand.  He meets a friend, a crab, who shows him how to climb trees, play ball, and build sand castles on the beach  Eventually the penguin has to head home but the crab follows him, saying he needs a vacation too, so the penguin then shows crab everything he likes to do in the snow. 

Have your young readers share with one another about vacations they have been on.  Where did they go?  What did they do?  Did they enjoy themselves? Why or why not?  Before showing students the cover of the book, ask them where they think a penguin would want to go on vacation and why.  Lead them to realizing that people typically want to go on vacation someplace where they can do different things than they normally do.  Thus, the penguin wants to go someplace warm.

As you read aloud the text, have students retell and compare/contrast the events that occur in the text.  Penguin learns new activities while on vacation at the beach with Crab and vice versa.  Below you will find a Venn diagram that students can use to compare and contrast the vacations of the two characters. You can either have students write on the Venn diagram or there are pictures included for younger kids to just glue in the correct location.

Also included in the freebie is a sheet for students to choose, draw, and describe one event from each of the two vacations in the text.

As an extension for older students, focus on the theme of the text.  When Penguin first goes on vacation, he doesn't have as much fun because he doesn't know what to do until he meets a friend.  Crab and Penguin are able to enjoy both places because they enjoy being with one another.

I've also included a sheet that students can use to make a connection by drawing and describing an event from one of their own vacations.

Click on any of the images or the cover below to download all of the freebies mentioned in this post from Google Docs.  There is also a Scholastic freebie for younger readers and a penguin to color available free from the publisher.  Enjoy!

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If you are looking for other summer themed activities, follow my Pinterest board below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up