We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Book
Is this your first year reading We Don’t Eat Our Classmates with your students? If so, take a peek at this quick summary of this adorable picture book. Then, continue reading to see all of the wonderful ways you can teach this book to your students.
We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins follows the story of Penelope Rex, a young T. rex who is excited to start school. However, on her first day of class, Penelope discovers that all her classmates are children. This is a particular struggle for Penelope because “children are delicious!”
Penelope can’t resist the delicious temptation of her classmates though and swallows them up. When her teacher tells her that you shouldn’t eat your classmates, Penelope spits them out – thankfully, all still intact! Unfortunately, her classmates are now scared of Penelope, which makes it extra difficult for her to make friends.
Later in the book, Penelope experiences what it may have been like for classmates when we ate them. This even gives her a new perspective which leads her to apologize to her classmates. Furthermore, it encourages her to work hard to earn their trust and friendship.
From the first bite to becoming friends, your students will laugh all the way through the book. Moreover, they will learn important lessons about friendship to help them start a new school year.
We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Lesson Plans
Now that you know what this delightful picture book is about, it’s time to learn HOW to use it in your classroom! To begin, let’s look at the different lessons we have created for this read aloud.
Inside this read aloud for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates there are several lesson plans. These lesson plans cover a variety of learning activities that address several core standards for reading literature. Moreover, there are enough lesson plans for at least three days of learning.
Here is a quick peek at the types of activities you’ll find lesson plans for:
- Comprehension questions
- Whole group response to text activities
- Response to text worksheets
- Writing pages
- Vocabulary cards and worksheets
- Quiz
- Retelling puppets
- Craftivity template
As mentioned above, this interactive read-aloud is designed to be taught over multiple lessons. Each lesson provides students with a different purpose for revisiting the text. Moreover, it provides different ways to talk about the text and respond to it.
While this provides students time to explore different ways of learning, it also allows them opportunities to dive deeper into the text with fresh eyes each day. Therefore, teaching them the importance of revisiting the text. This also gives them several chances to connect to the characters and events and most importantly, fall in love with the story (and reading)!
Let’s explore how students will engage with the text in these different lessons.
Day 1 Lesson Plan for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
On this first day of the read aloud for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, we start with a few pre-reading questions. Questions like, What is the title of the story? and What does the illustration on the cover show? introduce students to the book and get them excited to read.
While reading, there are additional comprehension questions to explore as a whole class. This includes exploring story elements and plot structure with questions like, Who are the characters? Where does the story take place? and What happens in the beginning, middle and end?
Day 2 We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Lesson Plan
On the second day of this read aloud, the whole class returns to the story to explore the characters in more detail. This begins with discussing how Penelope feels in the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
In addition to character development, this day includes lesson plans about craft and structure. This book is perfect for teaching a structural element not included in many books, speech bubbles! We love how speech bubbles are used in this book and the opportunity it gives teachers to introduce speech bubbles to students.
Students get to explore speech bubbles further with a point of view activity that invites students to look at the different points of view of different characters.
Day 3 Reading Lessons for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
The third day of comprehension questions invites students to look at how words and illustrations are used to create meaning. In addition, they get to explore text connections.
Students explore individual text to self connections further through an interactive writing assignment using the prompt, I can be a good classmate by… This prompt is perfect for helping each student think about their role in the classroom. This can help build a positive classroom community and establish effective classroom management early on.
Extended Learning for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
Beyond the three days of lesson plans above, there are several more learning activities inside of this read aloud! These additional activities can be used for extended learning to make a full week of read aloud activities. These can also be added to the first three days of learning to enrich learning as desired.
- Vocabulary worksheets and anchor charts
- Craft template for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
- Retelling Puppets
- We Don’t Eat Our Classmates Quiz
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We Don’t Eat Our Classmates PreK Lesson Plans
Earlier, we mentioned there was a read aloud for preschool and Kindergarten. Here it is!
This PreK read aloud for We Don’t Eat Our Classmates includes the same amazing resources we shared above. Yes, including detailed lesson plans for how to implement this read aloud in your preschool classroom!
We Don’t Eat Our Classmates is truly one of our favorite back to school books and perfect for teaching at several grade levels. Therefore, you can easily use this prek read aloud for kindergarten. In addition, the read aloud above is excellent for first and second grades.
Whatever grade you teach, we know you and your students will enjoy learning how to build a positive classroom community with the help of Penelope.
