Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco: Book-Themed Activities for Exploring Weather and Feelings of Fear and Anxiety

Thunder Cake is the story of how a young girl (Patricia Polacco) conquered her childhood fear of thunderstorms with the help of her grandmother. Her Babushka helped her to ignore the approaching storm as they wandered the farm gathering the ingredients for Thunder Cake. This story can be a springboard for conversations about personal fears and concerns.

Feel free to use any part or all of the activities below, depending on whether you need a 15-diversion or to fill in a whole period for last-minute sub plans. (or anything else!)

Grades 2-5

books and activities pairings, weather, social-emotional learning

Patricia Polacco reads Thunder Cake in the video above.

Set the Stage

  • Circle up to set the stage for the lesson.
  • Pose the question: What Makes You Scared?
  • Board all of their answers.
  • Students can turn and talk with a partner to share a quick story about why they are afraid of whatever they shared.
  • Some of the words in the text are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS…why does the author do this?

Discussion

Possible discussion topics and ideas:

  • One key takeaway is that Patricia learned that she is a brave person because she faced fears and completed difficult tasks despite being scared.
  • Sometimes it’s hard to do things but with support for friends and family, we can face almost anything.
  • Some things are too scary to face right now but we know it will get easier as we get older and have more experiences and become more sure of ourselves.
  • It feels good to stick with it and tackle hard things.
  •  

Writing Activities

As many of you may know, a great deal of Patricia Polacco’s work has an autobiographical component. This story is no different. This is a tale about a summer storm when she was a young girl on her grandmother’s farm in Michigan. The writing activity below asks the students to tell about themselves like Patricia does in Thunder Cake

Choose a time when you were fearful of doing something, but decided to move ahead and go through with it.
  • Did someone or something help to make you feel braver and more capable?
  • Tell about the help or support you got and how and why it helped you work though your fear.
Pre-Writing
  • Students map their fears.
  • This could be a flow chart, web, or simple storyboard.
Choose specific words to use all capitals with to give a PUNCH to the important words or sounds or feelings in your story. Teachers Pay Teachers has more writing prompts and a graphic organizer on their website.  (For Free!)

Other Extensions

  • Science: Use this book as complement to your weather studies.
  • Geography: Where is Michigan? What part of the country is it in? How might their weather be different from ours?
  • Art: Paint or draw your favorite (or the scariest) weather scene. Use mixed media to create a tactile representation of weather-related scenes.

Other "We Need a Break" Activities

These are plans that have been culled and cobbled from various sources and meant to be easily implemented  as a sub plan or if you or your kids are stressed and need a break from the regular routine or you’re at a point where you can’t start the next lesson or unit today…a snow day schedule, or maybe an unplanned assembly changes your schedule.

If you have a favorite activity for teacher or classroom “regrouping,” or sub activities, share with us! 

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