The Recess Queen Activities for the Primary Classroom

At the beginning of the year, it is important to establish your expectations, routines, and procedures. This includes the playground. The Recess Queen is a great book to help start a conversation with your students. Here are some activities you can pair with The Recess Queen.

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About This Book

Written by: Alexis O’Neill
Illustrated by: Laura Huliska-Beith

Mean Jean was Recess Queen and nobody said any different. Nobody swung, kicked, or bounced until Mean Jean did. If kids ever crossed her, she’d push ’em and smoosh ‘em lollapaloosh ’em, hammer ’em, slammer ’em
kitz and kajammer ‘em. Until a new kid came to school!

With her irrepressible spirit, the new girl dethrones the reigning recess bully by becoming her friend in this infectious playground romp.

This is a great story to share at the beginning of the school year as you develop your expectations for the classroom and playground.

The Recess Queen Activities

This resource has a large focus on comprehension and vocabulary. These 12 cards will help guide your discussion of the story.

These graphic organizers will come in handy as your students work on summarizing and retelling the story. This spinner activity allows students to review story elements in a fun way.

I included a few graphic organizers to focus on Mean Jean and Katie Sue while reading the story. Students can describe the two girls, compare and contrast them, and describe how Mean Jean changes during the story.

I selected 12 vocabulary words to focus on in this story. Each vocabulary card has a matching definition. These can be used in a pocket chart display or students can play a memory matching game for further practice. You can use this vocabulary match-up page to check for understanding of these terms.

Students can also take a poll to find out the most popular recess activity in their classroom. After tallying the responses, students can graph the results.

Recess Royalty Craft & Writing

Because this story takes place on the playground, I thought it would be fun to create some Recess Royalty kids. I have included several templates to help your students create themselves or a new character.

Students can choose from several recess-themed writing prompts or you can select your own. The crowns can also be printed without the Recess Royalty text.

You can find all of these activities in my book companion for The Recess Queen.
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