Bonaparte Falls Apart

If you’re looking to add another story to your Halloween book collection, check out Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler. This is a story about friendship, humorous mishaps, and creative problem solving. It’s sure to be a bone-a-fide hit with your kids! Here are some activities you can pair with this spooktacular story.

About The Book

Written by: Margery Cuyler
Illustrated by: Will Terry

Bonaparte is falling to pieces. When he plays catch, his throwing arm literally takes a flier. And eating lunch is a real jaw-dropping experience. Luckily, Bonaparte’s well-meaning friends have some boneheaded ideas to help pull him together. But will it be enough to boost his confidence and get him ready for the first day of school?

Bonaparte Falls Apart Comprehension Activities

This book companion focuses mainly on comprehension and vocabulary. These 12 comprehension questions will help guide your discussion of the story. There is also an option to have students respond to these questions in writing.

Throughout the story, Bonaparte’s friends come up with some creative ways to help keep Bonaparte from falling apart. Students can keep track of each friend’s idea and what went wrong with each plan. There’s also a character web for details about Bonaparte.

After reading the story, students can put the story back together with these sequence of events cards. This is a great way to help get students ready to retell and summarize the story.

I added graphic organizers to help students work on summarizing and retelling the story. This spinner activity is great for working on story elements.

Bonaparte Falls Apart Vocabulary Activities

I selected 8 vocabulary words or phrases to focus on in this story. Each vocabulary card has a matching definition. Students can play a memory matching game or use them in a pocket chart center. Then, students can work with their vocabulary words using this fill-in-the-blanks page and vocabulary match-up activity.

Bonaparte Falls Apart Writing Activity

Finally, I have included a writing activity with some suggested prompts. This includes a writing page with a Bonaparte topper. To save time, one version already has a face drawn in place, but I have included a blank version so students can draw their own version of Bonaparte.

Once students have finished writing and coloring, they can cut around the outer edges and glue onto a piece of cardstock or construction paper.

You can find all of these activities in my book companion for Bonaparte Falls Apart.

If you enjoy this resource, you can find even more book activities here.

If you don’t already have a copy of this book in your school or classroom library, you can find it on Amazon. I have also seen it in the Scholastic Book Club flyer.