Folktales are a great way to introduce students to different cultures and their customs. Around St. Patrick’s Day, we love reading students Tomie dePaola’s book Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. Children will enjoy the Irish accents characters use throughout the story and the magic a leprechaun brings. This read aloud is great for elementary students. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Jamie O’Rourke is very lazy, especially when it comes to working. His wife Eileen, does all of their planting, weeding and watering. One day, Eileen hurts her back and could do the planting. Jamie started to worry that they wouldn’t have enough food to eat over the winter. On a late night walk to church, Jamie caught a leprechaun. Instead of taking the pot of gold, the leprechaun tricked Jamie into wishing for the biggest potato ever. Jamie returned home to plant his potato seed and soon after it grew into a giant potato. The villagers in town were amazed and offered to help Jamie dig up the potato if he explained how he tricked the leprechaun. However, when the potato rolls away and blocks the road, everyone must take home pieces of the potato to eat all winter. By spring, everyone is tired of potatoes and the villagers do not want Jamie to plant more seeds. They decided to always make sure he has enough food so they never have to see a potato again.Â
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Here are some different topics our lessons and activities for Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato include. There are many other skills covered in our resource as well!
- Discuss the different characters in their story and analyze their thoughts and actions.Â
- Stop and make predictions throughout the story and then have students evaluate their predictions after reading.Â
- Ask students to write about their opinions of potatoes.Â
- Incorporate letter writing by asking students to write letters from the perspective of one of the characters.Â
- Teach a lesson on irregular verbs using examples from the book.
- Practice identifying base words.Â
- Discuss the importance of participation and what an active participant looks like.
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
- 30Â 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
We know that students are going to love reading the book Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. Thanks to these activities and worksheets teachers can teach engaging and comprehensive read alouds. There are so many choices for teachers to make regarding the lessons they teach.
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- The Luckiest Leprechaun by by Justine Korman
- Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman
- How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace
- The Gingerbread Man Loose at School by Laura Marray
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
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