The Polar Express Literacy Center Activities
This resource is designed to accompany The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.
You can download the set of centers designed to go with this book at the bottom of this post. Click on the bold link.
This book is a December favorite in classrooms across the country. Children love the story and a reenacted Polar Express of your own, complete with hot chocolate is always a fun last day before break.
For this set of resources, my goal was to create a set of centers that can be used for a week long focus on the book during your rotations. If you do some more in depth work with the book, please share any of your ideas below!
As a fun wrap up you might even choose to make hot chocolate with your class! I have found that making hot chocolate in a crock pot is faster than other methods.
The Polar Express Collection
Task Cards The first part of this collection is a set of task cards. These are designed to accompany many of the printables we have created. They will be the directions you place at each center for your students to use as a reminder.
All Aboard! Students can make their own Polar Express ticket with this template.
Story Maps There are two of these so you can choose which fits your students best.
Sequencing These sequencing cards include the most important events from the book. Students can use the book to help them place the events in the correct order. You might also have students use these cards for fluency work.
Synonym Match This center includes word cards for sorting plus a recording page.
Reading Response Prompts There are an assortment of response questions to encourage students to think about their reading. Skills practiced include visualizing and looking at character emotions.
Comparing Students will be asked to compare the movie with the book.
Lined Papers There are an assortment of themed, lined papers that you can use as desired
You might wrap up your study of The Polar Express by watching the movie. If you have not seen the movie before, be sure to watch it before showing your class. There are some young children who find parts of the movie scary.
You can download this The Polar Express collection here:
Express Resources
Thank you to Creative Clips for the great clip art!
You can find resources for your Polar Express study below – contains affiliate links.