If you’re a teacher looking for a new way to teach manners in your classroom, check out the book Do Unto Otters. This read aloud is a great way to start the discussion on manners with students as well as set expectations for behavior and classroom rules. This is a great book to read at the beginning of the year as you are teaching your new students the ground rules for your classroom and new procedures. There are so many different social emotional learning topics this book touches on plus it serves as a fun way to practice reading and writing skills. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Mr. Rabbit finds out he has some new neighbors, the otters. He is a little nervous because he doesn’t know anything about otters. Thankfully, an owl is there to teach him about an old rule: “treat otters the way you want otters to treat you.” This causes Mr. Rabbit to think about how he would like otters to treat him.
Mr. Rabbit decides that he would like the otters to be friendly, kind, and considerate. He hopes that they can work together, play fair, and share with one another. Mr. Rabbit hopes that the otters will know when they need to apologize and that they will be able to forgive him when he’s done something wrong. Mr. Rabbit learns that getting along with his new neighbors will be simple if he treats them how he would like to be treated. This book is a great way to talk to students about behavior and manners.
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Do Unto Otters is such a great book for teaching a lesson about social emotional learning. However, there are also some great academic lessons that can be taught. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Teach students how to identify the main idea and find details to support the main idea.
- Practice finding the theme of a story and discussing the author’s purpose for writing a book.
- Have students write a teaching book about using manners.
- Ask students to write about times they used manners.
- Teach a lesson on plural nouns and adjectives.
- Introduce students to homophones using examples from the book.
- Discuss how to properly apologize to someone and what it means to accept an apology.
- Teach students rules for sharing and taking turns within the classroom community.
NO-PREP PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES:
If you are looking for “ready to go” activities for the first day of school, be sure to check out the book companion. With it you’ll receive all of the following resources to align with this specific book:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
So often, teachers are expected to teach social emotional learning lessons but are not given any resources to do so. With our book companion for Do Unto Otters we provide lesson ideas for various social emotional learning topics as well as specific discussion questions. In addition to that, you’ll receive comprehension questions, writing prompts, vocabulary and ideas for grammar lessons. You are going to love how comprehensive this resource is!
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- What If Everybody Did That by Ellen Javernick
- My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook
- Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
- Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
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