Koala Lou Lesson Ideas! This book by Mem Fox is perfect for kindergarten and first-grade students. Reading comprehension, responding to literature, visualizing, retelling the text, directed drawing, and STEM activity!
I always say that if you want students to be engaged in their learning, it MUST start with a great book. Koala Lou by Mem Fox is exactly that sort of book. This book is over 25 years old and yet it is still as relevant today as it was back then. My students asked me to read it again and again and again!
Koala Lou’s mother loves her, but after the birth of Koala Lou’s brothers and sisters, her mother does not have as much time to spend with her. SO, Koala Lou decides to enter the Bush Olympics!
Spoiler Alert: The Olympics do not go as planned for her. (Don’t worry, it has a great ending.)
As you know, with Engaging Readers™, we read the book each day for a different purpose. This allows us to dig deeper into the story and practice various reading comprehension skills.
We love to have students practice visualization at the beginning of the story. Koala Lou is perfect for this!
Students work together to retell the story with the large retelling cards. This teacher had the students place the cards in order under her document camera!
Once the cards are in order, the students turn to their partner and take turns retelling the story. This is such a great opportunity to strengthen not only the students’ reading comprehension, but it also offers tremendous oral language practice.
Then students place the smaller black and white versions in their notebook. They can always look at the class retelling display if they get stuck. BUT because they have orally retold the story, this is rarely an issue.
Students also practice sorting sentences. This would make a great student center to practice once you have finished sorting the sentences in your whole group center.
On another day, students practice their inferring skills!
Here is a great version of the story. Although a video never replaces the need for the book, it is nice to have a different model of fluency to share with your students.
I love how these directed drawings turned out!
You can find all of these activities by clicking:
In 2021, we have created a digital version of the response pages.
You can find this file by clicking:
The STEM challenge for this book was to plan and build a tree for Koala Lou.
Students were asked had to estimate how many cups they thought they could add before it fell over.
Then they responded! I love this one!
We also have differentiated center and worksheet activities that go along with the book! Here are a few of the activities
You can find all of the STEM challenge activity details, center activities, and Koala Lou worksheets by clicking below:
You may download these lesson plans for kindergarten PDF or an editable template. I have used Hello Literacy Fonts (which are free for non-commercial use). You may want to download her fonts and install them on your computer first. This way the formatting will not be off. Naturally, you can change the fonts if you prefer.
To see additional Lesson Plan Posts like this, click HERE.
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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Oh No! They are housed on Google Drive. Does your school email have a firewall that prohibits access to Google Drive? You can email me. [email protected]