Eric Carle unit, lesson plans and activities for The Mixed Up Chameleon, Rooster’s Off
to See the World, The Very Busy Spider, The Foolish Tortoise and Walter the Baker.
Science/ Social Studies
Read The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric
Carle. Discuss camouflage as a way to
protect or to hunt.
Students use finger paint over tag board to
create a mixed up chameleon.
Make tissue paper and glue art using cut
outs. Find where chameleons live on a map
or globe. Describe their habitat. Make a list
of various types of lizards and
compare/contrast these.
Read Rooster’s Off to See the World by Eric
Carle. Building vocabulary: Students learn
the meanings of horizon, homesick and
meal.
Skill: Sequencing and planning, List steps
you would take to prepare for a trip.
.
.
Read The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.
Make a class chart “Spiders can____,
spiders have____, spiders are_____”.
Build vocabulary: silk, web, and meadow.
Read Over in the Meadow and compare this
to the meadow in The Very Busy Spider.
Read The Foolish Tortoise.
Discuss sharing, love for others and basic
wants and needs (like shelter). List types of
shelter that people and animals use.
Using a venn diagram, compare a turtle and
a tortoise.
Read Walter the Baker.
Students find the continent of Europe on the
globe and view pictures of real castles in
Ireland and Germany. Discuss the
occupation of a baker and what goods are
sold in a bakery.
Literacy Block
Identify the author, setting, characters, main
idea, conflict and resolution of the story.
SLK.2, RLK.3
Make a class chart of other words
beginning with Cc
Writing: The chameleon wished he
could have________. SLK.5
Practice asking questions.
Identify the author, setting, characters, main
idea, conflict and resolution of the story.
SLK.2, RLK.3
Use sight words to complete worksheet
sentences: what, was, said
Writing: Rooster forgot______. SLK.5
Identify the author, setting, characters, main
idea, conflict and resolution of the story.
SLK.2, RLK.3
Students complete onset/rimes in single
syllable spoken words _eb (as in web)
RFK.2c, RFK.2e, RFK.3d
Writing: The spider was___. WK.2
Identify the author, setting, characters, main
idea, conflict and resolution of the story.
SLK.2, RLK.3
Skill: Using many different words that have
the same meaning as fast. Students find these
in the story and make a class list.
Writing: The tortoise____. WK.5
Identify the author, setting, characters, main
idea, conflict and resolution of the story.
SLK.2, RLK.3
Understanding text inside the quotation
marks as spoken words: Practice reading the
words inside quotation marks with
expression to convey the author’s feelings.
Using white boards, practice writing small
quotes.
Extension
Name the chameleon’s predators and their
prey. Use a flyswatter with sticky tape to
mimic a chameleon’s tongue.
Language arts: tell what body feature you
would wish to have if you were the
chameleon. Sponge paint card stock
chameleons.
Math: Measurement- My chameleon is
____cubes long.
393-396
Math extension: Take away –
Using the book pictures as a
reference, the children take
away the animals in the order in
which they left the group. Practice
counting backward down to 1.
Paste the pictures in order.
Match animal actions to the proper animal
character in the story using verbs on
sentence strips and animal pictures from the
story.
Big idea: Why do spiders spin webs? How is
that different from other animals that hunt?
Craft: paper plate spiders with marble paint
webs or yarn webs.
Language arts: Identify the pairs of rhyming
words found throughout the text.
Craft: Using green paint, students make
thumbprints on a turtle shell and create the
head, feet and tail with green crayon. Print:
“This isn’t just a tortoise as you can plainly
see. I made it with my thumbprint. It is a part
of me.”
Students use playdoh to try to make the
pretzel twist that Walter made for the king
and queen.
Math: Class graph- Our favorite baked
goods are…
Sequencing/ Steps to making a pretzel