St. Patrick’s Day can be a fun holiday to celebrate in the classroom, especially since it can add a bit of extra engagement to skill practice. One way that you can add more comprehension practice to your St. Patrick’s Day lesson plans is with an engaging read aloud. In this post, I’m going to share Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato activities that you can use to plan a meaningful and fun read aloud experience for your students.
The Importance of Read Alouds for Comprehension Practice
Reading aloud to students is a vital tool for literacy instruction in kindergarten. During a read aloud, students are able to focus on the thinking work since the teacher is doing all of the decoding work. This allows students to enjoy the story and better understand the text.
It’s important for students to practice reading comprehension skills because it’s an essential part of becoming a skilled reader. As we can see in Hollis Scarborough’s infographic, language comprehension is an essential strand of the reading rope. It intertwines with other reading sub-skills to help students become fluent and confident readers. Taking the time to read aloud to your students will be time well spent!
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie de Paola
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie de Paola is an illustrated retelling of an Irish folktale. In this story, Jamie is extremely lazy and doesn’t want to plant potatoes for his family, leaving the work for his wife. However, after his wife falls ill, Jamie is worried that he might actually have to get his hands dirty.
After a chance encounter with a leprechaun, Jamie decides to wish for a seed that will help him grow the biggest potato ever. He figures this will provide his family with all of the food they need for the winter without having to plant a bunch of seed. With the help of this magic seed, Jamie ends up growing a gigantic potato in his garden. However, this big potato ends up being a bit more than he (and the village) had bargained for.
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato Activities
This engaging story is a perfect read aloud for the weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day. It can also serve as inspiration for many different comprehension activities that can enhance the read aloud experience. Here are some of my favorites:
1. Making Predictions
As you read the story with your students for the first time, you can practice making predictions together. Students can draw a picture of what they think will happen to the seed that Jamie gets from the leprechaun. They can also write a sentence for their predictions.
After finishing the story, students can reflect on whether their predictions happened or the author surprised them. This is a great way to help students become more confident in making predictions since they aren’t treated as “right” or “wrong”. Instead, students think it’s fun when the author surprises them!
2. Retelling
Another important comprehension skill that students can practice with a read aloud is retelling story events. Not only does this skill help students recall story events for comprehension purposes, but it also helps them practice sequencing. Students need strong sequencing skills for both written and oral communication.
After reading this story, students can use illustrated story event cards to help them retell the story in the correct sequence. These cards are perfect for a pocket chart activity! There is also a printable version of the retelling activity that students can use to put the story events in order.
3. Making Connections
Strong readers also make connections to what they’re reading, so this is an important comprehension skill to practice. Students can surely relate to eating potatoes, so it’s fun for them to think about what they would do if a giant potato was growing in their yard. They will likely relate to the villagers who gradually get tired of potatoes after eating them all winter.
You can record student responses on an anchor chart as you discuss these connections. There will likely be a wide range of student responses since some people don’t like potatoes very much. This can inspire a fun classroom discussion!
4. Comprehension Questions
To help students remember story details and practice their comprehension and recall skills, you can ask them simple comprehension questions. For example, students could complete a true or false activity based on story events. They will color the correct circle on the paper for each statement as they determine if they are true or false.
You could also turn comprehension practice into a whole-group activity. Students can give a thumbs-up for true or thumbs-down for false as you mention details that may or may not have been in the story.
5. Leprechaun Craft
To wrap up this fun read aloud, students can create their own leprechaun craft. Students can practice fine motor skills as they assemble the leprechaun craft. For example, they can tear orange paper in order to create the leprechaun’s beard. Craft projects can also help students practice their listening skills as they follow the assembly directions for the craft.
The completed crafts are perfect for a classroom or hallway display! Students are always so excited to see their hard work on a bulletin board. It motivates them to do their best work!
Printable Activities for Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato
All of the activities in this post (and many more!) are included in one easy-to-download resource. These activities are a great way to enhance your classroom read aloud and help students practice important comprehension skills.
This resource also includes detailed lesson plans so you can make the most of these activities with your students. If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this resource, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save These Engaging Read Aloud Activities
Be sure to save this post so you can find it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite Pinterest board of read-aloud activities. You’ll be able to quickly find these activity ideas when you’re working on your March lesson plans.
