15 Room On The Broom Activities (Free Printable Too)
Room on the Broom Activities and Lesson Ideas
October is Halloween season and a perfect time to introduce the book Room on the Broom. This great Halloween book has captured the hearts of young readers and educators alike. Its engaging storyline and colorful illustrations make it a perfect tool for teaching comprehension strategies to kindergarten students.
In this blog post, we will explore a variety of Room on the Broom activities that promote comprehension and oral language development. This great mentor text is one students can also join. The text’s fun rhythm and rhyme language is a simple way for students to practice phonemic awareness! These activities will enhance reading comprehension skills and foster a love for learning in early childhood education.
I hope you find a Room on the Broom activity or two you can use in your classroom.
Room on the Broom Book Summary
Room on the Broom is such a fun, non-spooky Halloween story! Room on the Broom was written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It is a sweet story about a kind little witch flying with her cat. The little witch’s black hat falls to the ground. When she goes down to collect it, a dog appears with her witch hat in his mouth. She invites the dog to join them on the broom.
The little witch continues to drop objects, and when she retrieves them, she invites different animals to join her on her broomstick, making room for her new friends. As they travel together, they encounter a scary dragon who wants to eat the witch. With clever thinking and teamwork, they manage to escape the dragon’s clutches towards the end of the story.
This heartwarming tale involves themes of friendship, kindness, and problem-solving. Your little learners will have so much fun with the rhyming pattern of the book!
Room on the Broom Reading Comprehension
We knew we had to include this book in our book companion series of lesson plans, which we call Engaging Readers. Since 2013, thousands of teachers have been following these lessons to teach an interactive read-aloud. An interactive read-aloud asks us to read the book multiple times. The teacher does the decoding, and the students, through discussion questions, make a deeper connection with the story. These book-related activities and discussions help strengthen students’ language processing skills, which are strongly linked to listening and reading comprehension.
#1 Room on the Broom Making Predictions
Prediction and inference skills are vital for children’s reading comprehension, allowing readers to make educated guesses and draw conclusions based on textual cues. Room on the Broom offers several opportunities for practicing this skill. Here is the discussion focus for this skill:
- Read until you get to the page where the dragon has the witch. After you read “Buzz off! – THAT’S MY WITCH”, ask: What do you think will happen next?
These teaching slides help guide our students’ discussions!
In kindergarten, we love seeing the illustrations students use to convey meaning. We are not concerned about their transcribing skills.
We dedicate plenty of time to dictation and writing during our Science of Reading direct instruction. During our Engaging Readers time, we want to capture the students’ thinking skills surrounding the book… in this case, Room on the Boom.
#2 Room on the Broom Sequencing and Retelling
Sequencing and retelling activities are effective in helping children grasp the structure and flow of a story, leading to better comprehension. We use illustration cards, and students work collaboratively to arrange key events in the correct order.
Then, students turn to their partners and practice retelling the story. Students practice using transitional words as well as using language from the text. This great activity is a perfect way to offer students a chance to practice their oral language.
#3 Room on the Broom Character Traits
Analyzing characters in a story during reading helps students grasp the story’s complexity. It encourages empathy as they relate to the characters’ feelings and reasons. This enhances understanding and promotes critical thinking, making reading more engaging for young readers.
So many of the mentor texts we use in our book units are character-driven, so we love to take the time to examine the characters in the stories we read. This interactive anchor chart stays posted so we can add to it over time.
#4 Room on the Broom Opinion Writing
Students are also asked each week to discuss their favorite part of the book, Room on the Broom!
The sentence stems are very supportive as students begin to master partner discussions.
#5 Sentence Study with Room on the Broom
Each week, we take a book related to the text and create a sentence study! This gives us an opportunity to discuss various print and grammar concepts.
#6 Room on the Broom Vocabulary Studies
We also pull a few Tier 2 vocabulary words from the book to include in our vocabulary discussions.
You can learn more about vocabulary study by clicking:
#7 Room on the Broom Craft
When we have the text detail and the craft lesson merge in fun ways, we are there for it! We love how this Room on the Broom craft came out! Students add their own broom retelling strip to the craft. Cutting these individual retelling images is a great way to strengthen fine motor skills.
You can find all of these lessons and response pages in our Engaging Readers units. (Keep reading for the free file.)
#8 Room on the Broom Snack Idea
Because I live for snacks, this is an adorable and relatively healthy-ish snack. I have seen about 200 different “recipes” for it, but this fun snack is mozzarella sticks, pretzels, and chives! These little broomstick snacks look delicious!
#9 Room on the Broom Video
If you are not familiar with Room on the Broom, you can watch this adorable video!
#10 Learning about Fall!
This book is also a great segue into discussing fall! Here are a few great videos to bring into your classroom.
#11 Why Leaves Change Color Video
Here is another great fall science video!
#12 Halloween Digital Activities
One way to save you hours of prep time is to add a few digital centers to your rotation. These Halloween themed centers offer 20 activities for the week, with just one link. These math and literacy centers can be added to your Seesaw library with one link or you we have included a PowerPoint file, so you can upload the activity to your Google Classroom.
#13 Halloween Math and Literacy Activities
These kindergarten Halloween-themed activities go wonderfully with Room on the Broom.
Room on the Broom Free Printables
I have also made this free file for you. Just add your name to the box below and it will be added to your email inbox.
#15 FREE LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE
You can download this free editable lesson plan template. You can edit it and make changes to meet your own classroom needs. Simply click on the image below to download this from Google Drive!
Do you want to see more lesson plans like this?
Hopefully, you found a few hands-on activities and lesson ideas you can try for your Room on the Broom week. As I said, this sweet book is a great story that I’m sure your students will love.
OTHER BLOG POSTS FOR OCTOBER
Here are few other articles you may be interested in:
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Deedee Wills
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!
Hi, I'm DeedeE.
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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12 Responses
It is not allowing me to sign up to get the free files.
Hi Marianne,
After you type in your email address, press the enter key to submit your email.
Free file is not working.
Hi there! If you add your email and click enter or select “go” on your mobile device, it should work for you.
Hi! The free printable isn’t working for me, but I have subscribed!
Let me see if I can send it to you directly.
I am trying to access the free retelling craft but it was not emailed to me. Is there another way to access it?
Hi Christy,
The free file from this blog post is for the Room on the Broom printable worksheets. The craft and retelling activity is available in the reading comprehension unit that is linked in the blog post.
I read this story to my class, but it will better with the printables.
Can I please have the free room on the Broom file.
I cannot open the file.
Hi Jen! Can you please email me so I can send you a direct link? [email protected]