Why would animals wake up, sniff, and run during the winter? Tap into your readers' natural curiosity with Ruth Krauss' The Happy Day paired with this mini lesson focused on asking questions.

Something important is happening in The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss. Animals awake from their winter's sleep, sniff, and run. What could be causing this behavior? Readers will have fun picking up important clues as they anticipate a surprise ending.

The limited text and award-winning illustrations in The Happy Day push readers to synthesize what they know about woodland creatures with the information presented in the text and illustrations. This mini lesson focused on synthesizing will help guide student thinking as they read.

What is causing all of the animals to leave their warm and cozy winter homes and run outside in the snow? Curious readers will wonder as they identify the text structure of cause and effect to reveal the answer.

What is making the animals sniff and run? Readers are pulled into the story as they visualize different possibilities. Imagining themselves as part of the story will help readers comprehend the storyline and remember the bright ending.

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss as a springboard for instruction focused on diphthongs.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how -ow letter combination is used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with diphthongs.

This set of vocabulary development resources for The Happy Day highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book. Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions and pictures, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Use this Common Core aligned comprehension assessment to evaluate students' comprehension of The Happy Day.

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with The Happy Day. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.

Read The Happy Day then have some fun matching cause and effect sentences from the book. By using these cause and effect cards, students will demonstrate both their comprehension of the text and their understanding of cause and effect relationships in hands-on and interactive way.

This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in The Happy Day. Each cause card is marked with a square and each effect card is marked with a circle, making it easy to support students who struggle with matching cause and effect relationships.

Understanding cause and effect is a key comprehension and language skill. The text structure of The Happy Day includes several examples of cause and effect relationships, making it easy to use as a springboard for modeling or independent practice.

This simple resource includes four sentence stems. Each sentence stem presents an effect. Students will use what they know about the book to fill in the cause of the effect.

The BookPagez extension activities are a great way to push student engagement beyond the pages of the text. Try using this activity with early finishers, with students who show a deeper connection with the text, or as a center activity.