Welcome to our Book Club! One of my favorite children’s authors is Robert Munsch. I find his books to be hilarious and entertaining. Some might not like his humor but I’ve read many of his books to my first grade classrooms in the past. So today, I wanted to share with you Smelly Socks. You can go to his website (linked here ) and listen to him read the story to you. Or you can listen to me read the story to you. I’m also sharing some activities you can do afterwards. You can do any of these activities after you read a story!
You can download these FREE graphic organizers from Teachers Pay Teachers and use them with a variety of stories.
Activities to do after reading
- Write in a journal about the story. You can have them retell the story- like what happened in the beginning, what happened in the middle, what happened at the end.
- Make a prediction about what will happen next. In Smelly Socks, there’s a picture at the end of the story and you have to make a prediction about what happened. You can always write in a journal or you can draw a picture if kids can not write. You can have them write the beginning sounds of whatever sentence they want to write and you can write underneath their writing what they meant to say.
- Character Study. Talk about the main character. What are their traits? Are they happy? Are the bossy? Are the nice? Would you want to be friends with them? These could all be topics of discussion or you can write about it!
More Ideas
- Main Character, Setting, Plot, and Favorite Part. If you don’t have a journal, you can get a piece of blank paper and fold it into 4 spaces. Label each space- one for main character, setting, plot (what is the story about) and favorite part. They can write a sentence or draw a picture in each space.
- Design a new cover for the book. Get out some crayons and markers and have your student design a new cover for the book!
- Solve the problem. All stories have a problem. What was it and was it solved? Was there a solution. You can write in a journal or use one of the graphic organizers. (In Smelly Socks, the main character just wanted to wear the socks all day and they became very smelly!)
- Pick one word from the story. Try to come up with rhyming words for that word.
- Go on a verb hunt. Find 10 (or any number you choose) verbs in the story. Look them up in the dictionary. Find synonyms or antonyms for the verbs.
- Go on an adjective hunt. Find 10 adjectives. Look in a thesaurus and find a synonym for the adjective. Find an antonym for the adjective if there is one!
Let me know if you have any questions! There’s so many other things you can do with stories to fill up your Language Arts time. Have fun!
Here’s a post to help you if you’re suddenly homeschooling!