The Stories of Patricia Polacco
The Stories of Patricia Polacco are a great way to introduce independent reading and writing
activities to a Primary classroom. This book from F & D Teaching Aids, based in Grates Cove,
Newfoundland, has activities that you can use with your students on 7 of Patricia Polacco's
books. These storylines emphasize the importance of family and using events from your own life
to come up with writing ideas.
You can introduce these books by reading one a week as part of the read aloud section of your
Language Arts class. With a Language Arts center, you can focus the rest of the week's reading
and writing activities around this book, giving each student the chance to give an opinion on the
book and find connections to his/her own life.
All of the books by Patricia Polacco readily available at Barnes and Noble or at your local bookstore.
Chances are you will find many of them in your school library. You only need to have one book,
but if you have more, then that's great. Once you start this unit with your class, the students will
scramble to take one of the books home with them each night and have his/her parents read it
with them.
The Stories of Patricia Polacco offer you many opportunities to focus on teaching writing and
reading skills as well as grammar and word study. It also introduces the students to many aspects
of Social Studies, such as studying their own family history and culture and the early settlers of
their hometown.
Sample pages from this book:
The Keeping Quilt
Name ______________________________ Date ______________
1. Why was the quilt important to Patricia's family?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. Why do you think the quilt is colorful and all the rest of the pictures in the book
are black and white?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. What is your favorite part of the story? Why?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. Draw a picture of your favorite part?
Thunder Cake
Before Reading the Book
Suggested introductory activities
1. Tell the students they are going to hear (read) a story about a girl who was afraid of
thunderstorms. Ask the children how many of them are afraid of thunderstorms. Why are they
afraid?
2.Ask the students if there was anything they used to be afraid of, but are not afraid of it
anymore. What happened to help them overcome their fear?
3.Ask if they have read any books about people being afraid of things. How did these people
overcome their fears?
4.Ask them if they know how thunder and lightning happen. This is a wonderful opportunity to
integrate Language Arts and Science to explain the phenomenon of storms or to introduce the
topic of weather.
5.Why are people afraid of weather? Why are there warnings given out when severe weather is
expected?
6. What should people do if they are really afraid of thunderstorms?
The Bee Tree
After Reading the Book
The following questions can be used as conferencing questions or assigned as written exercises
to check students' comprehension.
1. Why was Mary Ellen tired?
2. What did Grandpa say a bee tree is?
3. How did Grandpa gather the bees?
4. Why did he need the bees?
5. Why did he let one bee escape?
6. Why did Mrs. Govlock want to go with them?
7. Why did Einar Tundevold want to go with them?
8. Why did Bertha want to join them?
9. Where had she just returned from?
10. Why did Feduciary get mad with them?
11. Where did the last bee fly?
12. What did they need to do once they reached the bee tree? Why?
13. What did they put the honey in?
14. What did Grandfather serve the guests at his house?
15. Why did Grandfather put honey on the cover of a book?
16. What did he tell her about books?
17. How did Mary Ellen change her mind about reading?
These are just some of the books by Patricia Polacco that your students will
really enjoy:
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