How to Teach Cause and Effect Relationships with A Turkey for Thanksgiving

This print and go lesson for teaching cause and effect relationships features the book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Free resource included.

Nearly every teacher teaches cause and effect in reading, yet for some reason, children really struggle with this skill. Well, one of my favorite ways to help my students make the cause/effect connection is to use mentor texts to discuss “Why” questions. After all, if we can get our kids to come up with the because, then they begin to get it.

using a turkey for thanksgiving to model cause and effect:

For today’s link up, I’ve chose to feature a lesson set I’ve put together for cause/effect for the book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Eve Bunting is another favorite author, and in fact, the post I wrote for her book, The Memory String is one of the most popular posts on my blog. Eve Bunting has written so many wonderful books including The Wednesday Surprise, The Butterfly House, How Many Days to America?, Someday a Tree, and Fly Away Home among many others.

This print and go lesson for teaching cause and effect relationships features the book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Free resource included.

introducing cause and effect:

This print and go lesson for teaching cause and effect relationships features the book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Free resource included.

To begin this lesson, I am sharing an anchor chart you can project and print for your students’ interactive notebooks or you might make one like the one to the left from Second Grade Superheroes. As I refer to anchor charts, I enjoy sharing examples with students of every day cause/effect relationships. These provide the concrete thinking needed for us to get started. One of the best way to help kids understand is through discussion though, so you might have your kids work in teams to break down examples to share. Kids need to talk it out.

Examples of Cause and Effect for Discussion

  • Missing the bus
  • Forgetting Assignments
  • Storms
  • Burning food in the oven
  • Playground Conflicts
  • Lost library books
  • Making a friend
  • Getting an A on a test
  • Sending a thank you card
  • Putting balloons and streamers up in the classroom

Using A Turkey for Thanksgiving as a Mentor Text

When you think about cause and effect relationships, one reason kids struggle is that they have to figure things out (infer). Using think aloud with a great piece of literature demonstrates further how cause and effect relationships work. If you don’t have a copy of A Turkey for Thanksgiving, you can use the freebie I’m sharing with the Youtube clip embedded below.

DOWNLOAD THE FREEBIE

Love this book and want the full unit?

My freebie is a preview of a larger unit for this wonderful book. The full bundle includes quite a few FUN hands-on options for comprehension and writing. Here’s a listing of what’s included.

  • Schema builder (quick write about Thanksgiving plans)
  • Story elements turkey project
  • Vocabulary organizer and cards
  • Question Task Cards and Response Sheet
  • Four Square Thinking Map
  • Summarizing the Main Idea
  • The Cause/Effect Set
  • and A Class Book Project

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you’ll find the cause/effect freebie helpful, and for other great ideas, check out the other posts linked up below.

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This print and go lesson for teaching cause and effect relationships features the book, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. Free resource included.

Carla

Carla is a licensed reading specialist with 27 years of experience in the regular classroom (grades 1, 4, and 5), in Title 1 reading, as a tech specialists, and a literacy coach. She has a passion for literacy instruction and meeting the needs of the individual learner.

This Post Has 22 Comments

  1. michele henson

    One of my favorite stories! Thanks for the ideas to use with it.

  6. Mrs. Fedeler

    Thank you friend! Loved yours too. I'll have to look for that book now. 🙂

  7. Linda Burns

    Thank you! Even my kindergartners loved that book!

  13. Primary Teachspiration

    Carla, this is a fabulous post! I LOVE using mentor texts for teaching, too! Thank you!

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