The Great Turkey Race by Steve Metzger

If you’re looking for an entertaining book to read to your students before Thanksgiving, you need to check out The Great Turkey Race by Steve Metzger! This story focuses on three turkeys who hear that Farmer Joe is looking for a special Thanksgiving turkey. The turkeys each want to prove that they should be picked, so they organize a series of contests and games to pick the winner. Will it be a happy Thanksgiving for everyone?

This was always a favorite November read aloud in my second grade classroom and today I want to share a few activities that go along with the book.

Before reading, I like to introduce some vocabulary words my students will hear. Then we dive right into the story. As we come across a vocabulary word, we use the context clues and discuss the meaning of the words.

Later in the week I check for understanding with a vocabulary matching activity.

After our first read of the story, we discuss the story elements and record them on a graphic organizer. Then we usually glue these pages into our reading response journals which become a yearlong record of our reading activities.

After a second read, we dive a bit deeper into comprehension and use questions to guide our understanding of the text. Some of the questions are text-based and some are more open-ended and allow for more classroom discussions. Sometimes I will have students answer the questions in written form if we have time.

To incorporate writing and art with the text, I like to do a directed drawing of a turkey and then let them choose a written response. I have included several writing prompt cards, but students could also use one of the comprehension questions, too.