Welcome to winter! The enchanting time of year where elementary teachers get to plan lessons around topics like snowmen. Just one of the many fun things about being an elementary school teacher.
When the air turns cold and the snowflakes start to fall there is no better time to explore the season through a snow themed read aloud. Even if you live in a sunny city that has never seen snow, your students will still enjoy a tale of snowy adventures.
A fave read during winter is Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright. Keep reading to see exactly how we would teach this charming book in our Sneezy the Snowman Lesson Plan.
Sneezy the Snowman Read Aloud Questions
The lesson plan we created for Sneezy the Snowman is not just one lesson plan, but three. Three reading lesson plans designed to bring the magic of the season into the classroom by combining the joy of storytelling with interactive activities. Moreover, a series of lesson plans to to help students further develop their literacy skills.
The key to helping students further develop their literacy skills comes down to carefully crafting reading questions. This includes a variety of leveled questions that invite students to return to the text.
Let’s take a look at some of the Sneezy the Snowman Read Aloud questions we created for you. As you explore the read aloud questions below, you will notice they fall into five categories:
- Before Reading Questions
- Story Sequence Questions
- Story Element Questions
- Cause and Effect Questions
- Craft and STructure Questions
- Words and Illustrations Questions
These five types of questions have been divided up over the course of three days. The purpose behind this is to create a read aloud that requires students to revisit the text several times.
Teaching students to revisit a text to gain a deeper understanding and to gather evidence are essential reading skills. Therefore, by spreading the questions out over several days students are more likely to return to the text to answer questions, rather than try to rush through and answer all of the questions just from the first read on the first day.
Now that you have an understanding of why we organized the reading questions for Sneezy the Snowman in this way, let’s look at the questions in more detail.
Day 1 Read Aloud Questions
On day one of reading Sneezy the Snowman, students will engage with three types of questions: Before Reading Questions, Story Sequence Questions, and Story Element Questions.
Here are some examples of questions that we have included in this ready to teach read aloud:
- What is the title of the story?
- What does the illustration on the cover show?
- Does the picture give us any clues about what the story is about?
- What did the children do each time Sneezy melted?
- Why did Sneezy say he was too hot?
- What did he want to do?
- Who is the main character in the story?
- What time of year does the story take place?
- What is the author’s message?
Day 2 Read Aloud Questions
On day two of exploring Sneezy the SNowman, students engage with questions related to cause and effect and craft and structure. Let’s see what these types of questions look like in this read aloud lesson.
- Why is Sneezy cold?
- What happens after Sneezy tries to warm up by drinking a cup of hot cocoa?
- What happens after he melts?
- Is this book giving information or telling a story?
- Why did the author name the snowman “ Sneezy”
Day 3 Read Aloud Questions
Day three is the final day of reading questions for Sneezy the Snowman. During this third lesson, students explore questions about the words and illustrations in the story.
Here are a few of the questions we wrote for this lesson:
- What does the illustration teach us about Sneezy’s gigantic sneezes?
- What can we learn about the girl who gave her coat to Sneezy from the illustration?
- How do the illustrations help explain why Sneezy felt “just right”
Writing Activities for Sneezy the Snowman
While this read aloud is focused on engaging the students in reading questions about Sneezy the Snowman, as teachers we all know that literacy is developed through writing. Therefore, we have provided a writing activity that you can choose to add in. This can be added at the end of one of the main lesson plans or it can be part of the fourth lesson plan.
If you choose to extend this Sneezy the Snowman read aloud for a fourth day, we have several other activities you can also include!
Sneezy the Snowman Vocabulary
As we mentioned at the beginning, winter is a wonderful and fun time to explore through learning. Therefore, in addition to exploring this enchanting season with your students through the story of Sneezy the Snowman, we have several additional winter lesson plans.
From more winter themed read alouds to STEM activities, these lesson plans will help you fill your season of snow with several ready to teach lesson plans!
