The Good Egg Book Companion to Enrich Your Lessons

The Good Egg read-aloud book, written by Jory John, is the perfect read-aloud for any classroom while covering essential standards. The book lends itself to teaching great vocabulary, modeling story structure, and, let’s not forget, teaching about the story’s message.

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The Good Egg Vocabulary

The read-aloud story provides a rich vocabulary to teach your young learners. Before reading the text, I do a quick intro to the key vocabulary words to pre-teach to the students. The steps are fast and straightforward, as outlined below.

• state the word while pointing to the printed word
• define the word in a simple kid-friendly definition
• use the word in a sentence
• ask a leading question the provides an opportunity for students to use the vocabulary word

Now, the students are ready for the reading. If you’d like your students to use the vocabulary in a fun, engaging game during centers, I have you coved with my Editable Vocabulary Games for Any Word List.

Story Structure

The Good Egg lends itself perfectly to teaching students the basic plot structure of a narrative. Students identify the characters, setting and sequence the events in order. The Good Egg book is then sequentially retold, making the retelling skill manageable for students. To aid students in the retell, graphic organizers are always a win.

A simple retelling of the story is next. The retelling process calls for the student the layout their hand palm upwards. Each finger then becomes one element in the retelling. Starting with the thumb, it represents somebody from the text. Moving clockwise across each finger, the students retell the text in this order. (somebody, wanted to, but, then, so)

Once the students move into writing the retell or summary of the text, they may then use the basic plot outline, as featured in the image.

Using The Good Egg to Teach Central Message

The Good Egg is a story about an egg that was always “good” but lived with many other eggs that were routinely “bad.” The excellent egg worried and often stressed over the other eggs’ behaviors. Eventually, the superb egg learned that he couldn’t control the other eggs’ actions, so he needed to take care of himself. Through The Good Egg, students determine the central message of the text.

The Good Egg Writing Prompts

The Good Egg book ultimately provides students with outstanding opportunities for writing. Here are a few of the prompts I provide for student writing.

• Describe three things about yourself, which make you a good egg.
• The Good Egg felt like an outsider. Describe a time you might feel like an outsider and describe what you can do about the situation?
• If something is bothering you or is worrisome, talk about it! What are some things you can say to start the conversation?
• The Good Egg realized that the other eggs were not perfect but that he wasn’t either. Write about the one behavior you would like to improve.

If you’re looking for more ideas on creating a writing routine that works for your elementary-aged students, be sure to check out my Sentences, Paragraphs, and Essays: Oh, my! E-book. You’ll love the tips, tricks, and activities to excite your students about writing!

If you’re interested in The Good Egg Book Companion Activities, you can pick them up in my TPT Shop. Or, if you’d like to learn more about guided paragraph writing with step-by-step instructions, you can read more on my blog post here.

(Although I love a little extra coffee money, it’s more thrilling to help teachers support their students while enjoying great literature!)

-Melissa