Fun Stellaluna Activities, Lesson Plans, and Bat Craft (2023)
STELLALUNA ACTIVITIES AND LESSON PLAN IDEAS
If you’re looking for engaging and meaningful Stellaluna activities to use in your classroom, you’re in the right place.
I’ll share ways to bring fun and learning together in this blog post. We all know sparking interest in reading and learning early on is vital. So, let’s jump right in with lesson plan ideas, reading comprehension prompts, and even a cute bat craftivity for one of my favorite books! Hopefully, you will leave with a few new ideas for your bat unit of study.
Stellaluna Book Summary
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon is this adorable children’s book where you meet a baby fruit bat.. Stellaluna gets separated from her mother bat when an owl attack causes Stellaluna to slip from her mother’s grasp. Stellaluna lands right in a bird’s nest, where a family of baby birds surrounds her. Stellaluna learns to act like a bird (although she does not like it). She eats bugs instead of fruit, sleeps at night, and does general bird stuff!
But the twist? Stellaluna realizes she’s a bat and bats do bat things. She tries to teach her bird family about bat activities and life, but they can’t grasp it. Towards the end of the story, she finds her bat family again and discovers she can be friends with birds and bats. It’s a tale of being yourself, embracing differences, and finding common ground.
This heartwarming story of a young bat is a life lesson wrapped in a beautiful picture book.. Kids learn that it’s okay to be different and that friendship goes beyond appearances. Plus, they get to see how Stellaluna navigates this mixed-up adventure. It’s a precious addition to your classroom read-aloud books.
Stellaluna Reading Comprehension Questions
We knew Stellaluna must be included in our interactive read-aloud (reading comprehension units).
What is an Interactive Read Aloud?
An interactive read-aloud encourages multiple readings of the book. The teacher handles the decoding while the students delve into the story on a deeper level through guided discussion questions.
The power of an interactive read-aloud is in the student discussions before writing! We love asking students to turn to their partners to discuss each time. Then they respond in writing (and in kindergarten, it is often writing = drawing.) We are 100% okay with this. We know that before they can write words, they need to do the thinking work first.
Reading comprehension can be challenging to teach in kindergarten and first grade because students’ listening comprehension exceeds the simple texts they can read independently.
Language comprehension shares the same processing centers in the brain as reading comprehension!
(Hogan, Tiffany P., et al. “On the Importance of Listening Comprehension.” International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, vol. 16, no. 3, 16 May 2014, pp. 199–207
Do you want to learn more about interactive read aloud lessons?
Stellaluna Lesson Plan Ideas – Making Predictions
We start our read-aloud lessons by making predictions! It helps kids predict what might happen next based on clues from the words and pictures. Predicting makes reading exciting and interactive, improving comprehension.
The writing prompt for our first day with this book is:
- Stellaluna has fallen into the birds’ nest. What do you think will happen next?
Stellaluna Lesson Plan Ideas – Retelling with Text Details
Retelling a story can be challenging to strengthen in kindergarten because the books they can decode on their own mostly exceed their listening comprehension skills.
First, we place the picture cards in sequential order. This is done as part of our whole group lessons. These picture cards show the story elements and sequence of events. Once the anchor chart (or pocket chart) is in order, students turn to their partners and retell the story. Taking turns, students incorporate intricate sentence structures and vocabulary words! Talk about great oral language learning moments. Since we do this every week, students quickly catch on, and then there is NO STOPPING them!
Students then create a personal retelling that they can use to practice retelling the story during center time or when they take it home to their families.
There is also a digital version of these activities in the DIGITAL set. They have been preloaded to Seesaw. Digital also makes an excellent independent learning task that you don’t have to prep! If you use Seesaw, you could ask students to record themselves retelling the stories! Assessment… complete!
Students then create a personal retelling that they can use to practice retelling the story during center time or when they take it home to their families.
There is also a digital version of these activities in the DIGITAL set. They have been preloaded to Seesaw. Digital also makes an excellent independent learning task that you don’t have to prep! If you use Seesaw, you could ask students to record themselves retelling the stories! Assessment… complete!
Stellaluna Activities – Comparing
How does the strategy of compare and contrast help the reader?
When you compare and contrast elements in a text, it engages deeper thinking. Comparing means spotting what’s the same and what’s different. Contrasting, on the other hand, is all about what’s different. Exploring various texts and talking about them is key to boosting understanding.
As a class, we created this Venn diagram chart to compare bats and birds. This answers the question: Are bats birds? We have used other books to learn bat facts. You can read more about that by clicking:
Here is the discussion and writing prompt for this activity:
- Readers compare things that appear in the story. In some ways, bats and birds are the same. In other ways, they are different. Compare birds and bats. Write how they are the same and how they are different.
Then, students can complete their own version. This is from the pre-made digital activities, but a paper version is also available.
Then, students can complete their own version.
Stellaluna Activity Inferring
What is Inferring?
Authors drop hints or clues to help you read beyond the obvious. This skill of using clues to grasp a deeper understanding is called inferring. It means going beyond what’s directly said and finding implied or suggested meanings from the details. We paused at the page where Stelluna was alone and exhausted from practicing her flying.
Here is the discussion and writing prompt for this activity:
- Think about all that Stellaluna has been through in the story. How do you think she is feeling at this moment? What evidence from the story makes you think you might be right?
Stellaluna Lesson Plan Ideas – Opinion Writing
Each week, we ask students to respond to an opinion question. Sometimes, it is as simple as asking students to write about their favorite part and why they liked it.
Here are a few of the written responses from a few years ago. I love reading kindergarten writing!
Other Strategies for the Book Stellaluna
Although these strategies were not included in our Stellaluna book activities, you could also discuss the character traits. You could include the family of birds and Stellaluna’s mother, not just with the main character. Additionally, discussing the author’s purpose is always a good way to tap into synthesizing a story.
Stellaluna Video
We always teach an interactive read aloud with an acutal book. But, it is nice to have different models of fluency. We love Storyline Online versions! Check out this video of Stellaluna!
Students can watch and rewatch Stellaluna as often as they wish.
Stellaluna Bat Craftivity
We always try to bring in a fun book-related craft to our lessons. This is the Stellaluna inspired bat craft!
Stellaluna Lesson Plan Ideas
You can find all of these interactive resources and lessons in our Engaging Readers units:
Here is everything that comes with printable Stellaluna teaching resources:
- graphic organizers
- vocabulary activities
- print and teach lesson plans
- an activity sheet for each day
- assessments and answer key with the correct answers
- bat craft activity directions and templates
- picture retell sequencing cards
STELLALUNA: 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 bat week. As I said, Stellaluna is a great story 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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3 Responses
I love this book, Stellaluna. Thanks for sharing your bat ideas to go with this book.
I love this!! Where did you get the story element pocket chart cards from?
The retelling pieces are included in our Engaging Readers units.