Use Those Darn Squirrels! by Adam Rubin to strengthen your students' comprehension skills, build their vocabulary, and help them understand how words work.
Get ready for a laugh-out-loud story about birds, squirrels, and one very grumpy old man in Those Darn Squirrels! by Adam Rubin. Old Man Fookwire loves painting and feeding birds—but he absolutely cannot stand squirrels. Before the birds fly south for the winter, the squirrels take over his backyard and cause all kinds of trouble. But these squirrels aren't ordinary pests—they're fuzzy little geniuses!
This resource bundle helps students enjoy the story's humor and heart while practicing key comprehension strategies, including identifying the author's purpose, synthesizing, and understanding text structure. Students will also explore rich vocabulary and word choice through targeted support, plus a word work activity that highlights adjectives leading nouns—just like in the phrases little old house and fuzzy little geniuses.
It's the perfect read-aloud for blending smart thinking with silly fun!
Why would an author write about squirrels who build contraptions, wear bird costumes, and hold tree meetings? Because it's funny—and it helps share a bigger message!
In Those Darn Squirrels!, students will explore how Adam Rubin uses humor, exaggeration, and silly surprises to entertain readers and show how characters can grow and change. This strategy helps readers look beyond just what happens in the story and start thinking about why the author chose to tell it that way. Is it just about squirrels? Or is there something deeper underneath the laughter?
At first, Old Man Fookwire and the squirrels seem like total opposites—he's grumpy and serious, and they're clever and mischievous. But as the story goes on, both sides begin to change.
Students will practice synthesizing by thinking about how their understanding of the characters shifts from the beginning to the end of the story. What starts as a backyard battle turns into something surprisingly sweet. By putting together clues from the text and illustrations, readers will see how the characters' relationship grows—and how kindness can come from unexpected places.
Those Darn Squirrels! is filled with cause and effect, problem and solution, and clever planning sequences that build the story's action. Students will explore how the author uses text structure to keep the plot moving: the squirrels cause a problem, the old man tries to solve it, and the squirrels come up with a new plan! Understanding these patterns helps readers make sense of what's happening and why. By noticing how each part of the story builds on the last, students can better follow the action—and maybe even predict the next squirrel scheme.
This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use Those Darn Squirrels! by Adam Rubin as a springboard for instruction focused on adjectives leading nouns.
By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how adjectives leading nouns are used within the story before engaging in both guided and independent practice with adjectives.
This set of vocabulary development resources for Those Darn Squirrels! 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.
Read Those Darn Squirrels! 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 a hands-on and interactive way.
This resource includes matching/sorting cards and a sorting mat for four cause and effect sentences in Those Darn Squirrels!. 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 Those Darn Squirrels! 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.
In Those Darn Squirrels! Old Man Fookwire tries to outsmart some very clever squirrels by building a tricky birdfeeder. Of course, the squirrels always find a way in! In this creative activity, students step into the role of inventor and design their own squirrel-proof birdfeeder. They’ll draw their invention, label it with vivid adjectives, and explain how it works. This hands-on project blends imagination with descriptive writing, encouraging students to think like problem-solvers while practicing word choice and sentence skills. A fun way to connect reading, writing, and creativity—all while giggling about those darn squirrels!
Old Man Fookwire is a grump. The only thing he likes to do is paint pictures of the birds that visit his backyard. The problem is, they fly south every winter, leaving him sad and lonely.
So he decides to get them to stay by putting up beautiful bird feeders filled with seeds and berries. Unfortunately, the squirrels like the treats, too, and make a daring raid on the feeders. The conflict escalates—until the birds depart (as usual), and the squirrels come up with a plan that completely charms the old grump.
